Serendipitous
by spookyjuice
Summary: Bucky x Reader. You and Bucky Barnes are on the run after a moment of serendipity brings you together. All you have to do is stay off the government's radar and stay focused on the task at hand - hashing out the most painful memories of his long life. Sounds easy enough… until you fall for him. (angst / fluff / smut / slow burn)
1. Chapter 1

" _...HYDRA agents have been allegedly operating covert assassinations under the nose of the government's secret intelligence organization, S.H.I.E.L.D., for nearly half a century. Agent Natasha Romanoff takes the stand today on Capitol Hill to address complaints against the S.H.I.E.L.D.'s questionable tactics in reconnaissance, training, and their apparent lack of internal investigation…"_

I frowned at my phone, turning up the volume on my earbuds trying to drown out the din of noisy cafe around me to listen to the breaking report. When the video ended I scrolled through the article, skimming through the paragraphs, looking for new leads. Nothing. I sighed, leaned back in my chair, and stretched my arms over my head. Finishing the last dregs of my coffee I rose, gathered my bag, and edged my way out the door onto the street.

It was halfway through September, yet I found myself tugging my sleeves up as sweat began to bead on my forehead and neck. Typical for Philadelphia, where summer can go until November and the next day it could snow and no one would bat an eye. The night had been cold and my apartment brisk in the morning from leaving the windows open, so I had worn an autumnal sweater. Regrets.

I ducked into the library out of the traitorous heat and relish the cool and quiet as I headed to the computer lounge. Thankfully my normal seat was unoccupied; I flopped down and spread out my things at the small desk. Notebook, pencils, highlighter, folder of printed documents, sticky notes, phone. On top of the pile is a note I had written the night before with a scribbled list of names compiled from the S.H.I.E.L.D. data dump - possible leads. On the library computer I opened the login to the government database of published criminal files available to the public, and I typed in the first name.

Hours went by as I made my way through the list, becoming increasingly irritated with each name that I strike off. I was so certain that when S.H.I.E.L.D. dumped their files, I would find my guy, my perfect case, my Holy Grail. But it had been weeks, and I had not found him. And I was getting desperate.

I was nearly ready to give up for the day and go get a pizza, but then I got a hit. The name of a HYDRA Special Op captured on a mission brought up a medical file detailing a severe brain injury and blunt force trauma. I dug deeper into the file and find scanned notes from a psychoanalyst detailing the functionality of the operative's brain activity as a result of his injury. My heart thundered as I read through it and as I reach the end, I knew this was my guy. Quickly, I opened a new browser and typed in the name of the psychologist who completed the evaluation: Andrej Kliment. I clicked the search button as a smile twitched the corners of my mouth. Once I speak with the doctor, I thought to myself, I can formulate my thesis. With Kliment's help I can petition for full access to the locked files on the HYDRA agent. Surely he will mentor me, understand why I need to focus my thesis on HYDRA's cutting edge technology and its impact on criminal psychology in this day and age. This is my ticket to my Master's, the big leagues, my future as an award winning criminal psychologist and expert on brain trauma. And then the search results load and my jaw dropped.

 _Disgraced psychologist Andrej Kliment arrested for murder..._

 _Kliment pleads guilty to Manslaughter…_

 _What happened to Andrej Kliment? Theories abound to the true nature of the man responsible for evaluating and clearing the names of hundreds of criminals…_

I scrolled through pages of links, groaning to myself as my bubble of hope deflated. I guess I won't be talking to Kliment after all. Back to square one. I drummed a frustrated fist on the table as I continue to scan the results, resistant to give up the day as a lost cause. Seven pages in, an article title caught my eye: "Is the Killer Shrink Andrej Kliment haunting Philadelphia's Nastiest Neighborhood?" The title is absurd, but I indulge my curiosity and began to read through the article.

"... _remanded on good behavior from his manslaughter conviction in 2013. His whereabouts since have been unknown, but an anonymous source is more than certain he is illegally practicing psychiatry in a dangerous Philadelphia neighborhood. 'I found him on Craigslist, he had his credentials listed, he seemed legit… enough,' says the source. 'I wanted to find someone off the grid that I could pay under the table so my husband wouldn't find out. When I got to the address I was sure it was a joke, the building was crumbling to dust and it was a street straight out of a horror flick, and then he opened the door and I recognized him instantly. I could never forget those eyes from the mugshot…"_

Could it really be possible that Andrej Kliment was in Philadelphia? I'm not a spiritual person, but I couldn't ignore serendipity as it stared me in the face, even if I was skeptical. I knew that the idea of meeting the man should scare me, but more than that I knew I would kick myself later if I did not at least do a little gumshoe work and find out if there was any truth to the claim. Resigned, I pulled up the map of the neighborhood mentioned in the article and frowned; this was going to be an unpleasant evening indeed.

"There ain't no one comes in here by that name," the grizzly bartender snapped at me. "People 'round here don't like no reporters asking no questions. Either get a drink or get out."

I scowled and withdrew a printed photo of Kliment from my bag and show it to the bartender.

"I'm not a reporter, I'm a student. I'm just looking to ask him a few questions about his work. I'm not concerned about his… anything else." I bit down the word "crimes", certain the bartender would take offense to the insinuation that he serves criminals in his establishment. A quick glance around at the patronage told me that Andrej Kliment was likely not the only one here keeping a low profile. There were a few small groups, drunkenly rambling to one another or shooting pool, but for the most part everyone kept to themselves, eyes lowered into their pints, avoiding my eyes as I looked around. I caught side of a tall, muscular guy hunched in a corner booth, hood drawn over his face, and for the first time since I had entered the seedy establishment, a chill ran down my spine.

The bartender rolled his eyes as I turned my attention back on him, but did a double take at the photo I thrust towards him. "Oh. That's Walter."

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You know him?"

"Yeah," said the bartender, "he was a good guy. Always paid his tabs, never no trouble."

"Was?"

"He died. 'Bout a year ago."

"You're sure? You're certain that Walter was Andrej-"

"I'm sure." The bartender slammed a glass down on the counter. "He's dead. Now get out."

Stunned and more than a little annoyed, I snatched back the photo and stomped to the door. In the street I took a deep breath and looked around. There were a few other businesses that looked open I could try, but if the bartender was right, I had long since missed my chance to track down Kliment. I paced up the street and allowed my mind to wander, turning over different situations in my mind about what could have happened to Kliment. I was so focused on my thoughts, I never heard the sound of footsteps as a hand clamped over my mouth and I was dragged, kicking, into the dark shadow of an alley.

 _Fucking idiot, you fucking, fucking idiot_ was all I could think to myself, over and over again, as the man forced me deeper into the darkness, cackling to himself as I strained and kicked out against his grip. I tried to reach for my pepper spray but my bag was torn from my shoulder and tossed away. Panic surged through me as I realized there was a second man, mangier and uglier even than the first, grabbing at my arms and holding me down. _I could die right now,_ my brain realized. _I could die right in this stupid smelly alley and no one even knows where I am. Fucking idiot._

It was two on one, and although I was no quitter, I knew I had no chance of fighting back. I had just resigned myself to closing my eyes and taking whatever came next, when a loud _WHAP_ pulled a weight off of me and one of the men grunted in pain. _WHAP. WHAP. WHAP._ Suddenly I realized my arms were free and my eyes flew open: I was facing a brick wall as the sounds of a struggle ensued behind me. I spun around to take in the scene. A man, twice as tall and three times as muscular as the two that had grabbed me, was beating the hell out of the creeps, landing blows to their faces and guts that knocked them off their feet with superhuman force. He had them both under control, seemingly with no problem, and only seconds went by before both men were unconscious on the filthy ground. He rounded on me then and I shrank back as I recognized the hulking, hooded man from the corner of the bar I had just left.

"Are you trying to get yourself fucking killed?"

"No!" my voice came out like a tiny squeak and I realized my entire body was shaking. "I-I-I… I was just… looking for someone…." I trailed off, feeling pathetic and stupid. Great detective work, genius.

"T-t-thank you," I stammered. "That would've probably been… pretty nasty. I owe you. Maybe my life."

His face was shrouded in darkness under the hood and I couldn't make him out, but I heard him sigh from under his hood.

"Come on."


	2. Chapter 2

The muscular man firmly took hold of my upper arm and all but dragged me back towards the street, scooping up my bag from the ground and tossing it back to me. I fumbled it and nearly dropped it again. My brain felt like white noise and I could tell that I was going into shock as I numbly put one foot in front of the other. This third man could have been dragging me to his murder cave for all I knew, but he was the only thing holding me upright in this moment, so I stumbled along next to him.

My brain was only vaguely aware as he led us to a shabby but cozy pub up the street and deposited me into a booth. I sat there shaking, blinking rapidly, trying to force my brain to catch up and process, trying to calm my racing heart. I jumped when he set two lowball glasses of golden liquid rather heavily down on the table in front of me.

"Drink," He commanded.

I stared dumbly at the glass for a moment, not looking up at the man, as the cogs in my brain slowly turned and I decided it couldn't hurt. I shakily picked up the glass and took a few heavy swigs; whiskey, it turned out, and it burned hot life back into my body as it slid down my throat. I raised the glass again and finished it off, giving my head a shake and letting out a _whoosh_ of air as I set the glass back down.

"Thanks. Again." I looked up at him now trying to betray the depth of my gratitude with my eyes. I could see his face now: he was square jawed, pale, with a dark beard and mustache that needed a trim. I could see a few wisps of shoulder length hair poking out from the hood. He looked unkempt and gaunt, but my first thought was that he was quite handsome. My second thought was that he looked quite familiar, but I couldn't place the face. He must have read the curiosity in my eyes because he looked down, away from my gaze. He pushed the second glass of whiskey towards me; I noticed he was wearing gloves in spite of the unseasonable heat. I took it gladly, already feeling the calm washing over me from the first glass and enjoying the liquid courage.

"Who are you?" I ask, unable to stop myself as I took another bracing sip.

"No one. Why were you asking about the doctor? Kliment?"

This took me aback. He had heard my conversation with the grizzly bartender? I tried to measure his question; he sounded curious, perhaps urgent, but not angry. I decided to tell him the truth. Why not?

"I was looking for him. I was hoping to speak to him about an evaluation he completed on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D." When the man did not respond, I pressed on, bolstered by the calming effects of the drink. "I'm pursuing a masters in Criminal Psychology and I specialize in brain trauma. I'm building a research portfolio for a Master's thesis based around HYDRA's controversial experiments on civilians and operatives alike, and the effects caused by variant types of neurological trauma. I found a promising case to be the centerpiece of my thesis, and Kliment was the psychologist who completed the analysis. But it turns out he's dead."

I frowned down at the glass in my hand. _And I almost died looking for him_ , I thought. I heard the man mumble a word that I did not understand, possibly in another language. It sounded like a curse.

"I've been staking out that bar for 3 days hoping to catch him there," he says finally. "Guess I know now why he hasn't shown up." My eyebrows shoot up.

"You've been looking for Kliment too? Why?"

"I was looking for some help. Under the radar. His name came up in the S.H.I.E.L.D. data dump and I did some research. His experience with HYDRA… I thought he might be able to help me. Guess not."

He sounded defeated, frustrated, and angry. I was interested to hear that he too was mining the S.H.I.E.L.D. data for the same kinds of information that I was. I wondered what on Earth we had in common that had brought us both here.

"What do you need help with?" I asked him, concerned. "I may not have worked for S.H.I.E.L.D., but I have been researching HYDRA for years. Maybe I can do something for you." I smiled at him. "I owe you big time, after all."

He didn't look up at me and I let the smile fall. I sipped the whiskey as a few minutes of silence sat heavily on the table between us. Finally, he leaned back in his seat, clasping his gloved hands in front of him as if he'd come to a decision, and met my eyes.

"How much do you know about brainwashing? Specifically, HYDRA brainwashing techniques?"

"Brainwashing?" The question surprised me and I furrowed my brow, thinking. "Some. I know that they were extremely successful, scientifically speaking, at achieving full neurological manipulation and control. It is my understanding that they used combinations of physical and psychological torture on their 'patients'." I did air quotes with my fingers to emphasize my sarcasm. "That's about it for the facts. The Winter Soldier files are still on top priority and security lockdown, not available to the public yet, from what I've gleaned in my research those are the primary source documents…" I paused, noticing that the man had shifted uncomfortably, tugging at his hood and looking anywhere but at me.

Suddenly, I was extremely nervous. I looked at him, hard, trying to figure out what I was missing, what he was hiding. And then the pieces slid into place, and I gasped.

"Holy shit, you're him." My voice came out as a panicked whisper. His face, the brainwashing, the strength to fight off two men as easily as if they were two teddy bears. Fear gripped my entire body and I went rigid against the back of the booth. "You're the Winter Soldier."


	3. Chapter 3

His hand clamped hard down on my wrist on the table, and I felt metal under the glove clunking against the wood.

"Don't panic. Keep your voice down. I'm not going to hurt you," he whispered tersely, casting paranoid glances around the mangy pub. No one was paying us any attention, but inside my brain was screaming.

"I'm not… I don't do that anymore," he murmured to me urgently, still holding my wrist in place. "I'm not going to hurt you, or anyone. I'm just trying to figure out what happened to me. I'm just trying to figure out who I am."

"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes," I recited back to him automatically. The whiskey was roiling in my otherwise empty stomach now, and heat crawled up the back of my neck, making me feel dizzy. "HYDRA's most elite assassin and the government's number one Most Wanted." He did not look so much like a deadly assassin at this moment, though. The skin on his face was papery and drawn, and his clothes looked tattered. With a heavy sigh he withdrew his hand, releasing my wrist, and the eyes that met mine were full of misery and despair.

"Yeah, that's right. Look, just give me a 30 minute head start before you call the cops and you can consider your debt repaid. Go home and for the love of God stay out of this neighborhood from now on."

He started to get up. "Wait," I said reaching out and catching his sleeve, "just… sit down a minute. I… I won't call the cops." He raised an eyebrow, and I swallowed. A reckless idea had sprung unbidden to my mind, a product of panic and whiskey, no doubt. I took a deep breath and began again. "You said you needed help. Kliment is dead, which means we're both screwed right now. But maybe we can help each other out. Your insight into HYDRA's inner workings are invaluable, a prime source, exactly what I would need to expose the truth. I'm an expert in brain trauma." _Sort of_ , I thought. _Not a doctor, but I know what I'm doing. I hope_. "I can help you figure out the truth. I know techniques for unlocking memories." He looked concerned, as though he thought perhaps I had suffered brain trauma for proposing an arrangement with the Winter Soldier. Maybe I had. Did I bang my head in that alley?

He scrubbed his hand over his eyes, suddenly looking exhausted. "I'm leaving Philly tonight. I've been here too long already. Kliment was my last ditch effort before I go. It's a nice idea, but I'm afraid this is the last time you'll see me."

A new jolt of panic flashed through me, my thesis Holy Grail and my future flashing before my eyes. "You can't," I said, a little hysterical. This night had really frayed my nerves. "I need your help. And it sounds like you need mine." I tried to be confident with that last phrase, straightening my back, trying to match his height.

Giving a humorless snort, he retorted, "Not gonna happen, doll. Have a nice life."

He was up and heading for the door before I had a chance to take in his words and I scrambled out of the booth after him. He pushed out the door and into the street, walking briskly. I nearly had to run to keep up.

"Wait!" I panted. I was certainly no super soldier. "Wait, let's at least talk about this for a second. You saved my life, I know you're not a bad guy, I can help you! You don't have to be alone!"

Stopping in his tracks, the Winter Soldier rounded on me and I shrank back, afraid.

"Yes, I do. I'm a criminal on the run. Alone is the only way I survive. Alone, and as far away as I can get. Being around me only puts us both in danger, and it seems to me you've had enough of that for one night." I flinched at the memory of the men in the alley, but I was determined now.

"Danger I can handle, but failure is not an option." I took a step towards him. "I'll go with you."

His eyebrows went up and he let out another snort, but no smile touched his lips.

"Oh will you? Have a lot of experience in international criminal espionage, do you?

I stayed calm, although my blood was boiling. "No, but you have more than enough for the both of us. Every criminal needs a partner. I can make you look less suspicious; people get nervous when they see a man alone, but everyone trusts a couple. And more importantly, I can help you find out who you are. I can get your memories back. That's a promise."

He frowned at me silently. After a moment, he simply asked, "why?"

I took a measured breath, and said slowly, "I want to be the one to expose the real truths about HYDRA. For once and for all. When I publish this thesis, not only is it going to get me my Master's, but put me at the forefront of cutting edge psychological thinking. And more importantly, bring justice to those bastards who hurt you and so many others. This is my future, and the future of criminal psychology in the age of powered people. But I can't do it without your help." I shifted on my feet, and then added more quietly, "Please, James."

He studied me for a long minute before pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing exhasperatedly. "I hope you're a quick packer. The boat leaves in 2 hours." He dropped his hand and gave me an icy look. "And my name is Bucky."


	4. Chapter 4

An hour and thirty-seven minutes later we got out of the taxi at the wharf and, throwing our bags over our shoulders, made our way down to docks. Barnes had stood uncomfortably in the doorway of my studio apartment as I rushed around, trying to assemble my most comfortable and utilitarian clothing into a gym bag. I felt self conscious as he watched me, wishing he would look somewhere else as I dove into my underwear drawer, pulled out a fistful at random, and stuffed them into the bottom of the bag. I ducked into the bathroom and emerged with an armful of items. Barnes had scoffed as I tossed in a small bag of makeup.

"Trust me," I said lightly, shoving a hairbrush into a side pocket, "you do not want to see what my real eyebrows look like." He had not cracked a smile.

We walked now between rows and rows of boats of varying shapes and sizes, and I wondered how in the hell Barnes had managed to set up an arrangement for naval passage under the circumstances. I began to feel nervous. _What the fuck am I doing?_ I thought to myself. _I just agreed to flee the country with a man I just met, who just so happens to also be the most wanted criminal in America. And a super soldier_. If I got caught, everything I was working for would be for nothing. I would be going to prison for aiding and abetting for the rest of my life.

So why was I so… excited?

At last we reached a boat at the edge of the dock and Barnes held out a hand for me to stop. It was smaller than many on the wharf, with just a small cabin and a navigation room attached, panelled on three sides with windows, and a deck area a few yards wide. Barnes called out in a language I did not understand - possibly Russian - and a small, bald man poked his head out of the cabin door and responded. I suspected they were exchanging passwords of some kind. The bald man disembarked the boat and limped over to us, held out a key, and began a long explanation in Russian to Barnes, presumably regarding the workings of the boat. He shot me a curious glance, but did not address me, and I was glad of it. He had a long scar that seemed to go from the top of his head all the way down his temple to his neck, and I shivered imagining how he got it. After a moment of speaking, Barnes and the bald man nodded at each other and shook hands, and we stood and watched him limp away down the dock before turning and boarding the boat ourselves.

"When you said the boat was leaving in two hours, I thought you were planning on stowing away," I said, confused but relieved. Being alone meant a far less chance of discovery. It also meant only each other for company. I tried to push that thought away.

"In a sense," said Barnes, putting the key into the boat's ignition and pressing some buttons on the dashboard. "The boat is auto piloted. If I had not shown up on time, I'm sure Kristov would have programmed it to go to the wrong place. Or to explode."

"Explode?!" I took a step back away from the dashboard, alarmed.

"He is an old Soviet spy. Old habits die hard. If I was not on time he would become paranoid that I would tip off the Americans to his location."

"How did you get a Soviet spy to give you a boat?" I asked, a panicky laugh rising to my throat at the ridiculous question. _What the fuck am I doing?_

"I did him a favor."

I decided not to touch that one. If I was going to keep my head on, there were some things about Barnes that were better off unknown for now. Instead I ducked through the door to the living quarters and surveyed the interior of the cabin. It was bigger than it looked from the outside: there was a small couch and chair wedged together near the door, surrounding a small ash wood coffee table; two chairs crowded a dining table that extended from the far wall, and a small twin bed jutted out into the middle of the room that appeared to fold up and lock into the wall for space-saving. In the opposite corner from the door was a tiny kitchenette, complete with a small fridge, cutting board, and two-burner stove. I tossed my bag on the couch and walked over to inspect the cabinets above the countertop, pleased to find them full of various cans and boxed side dishes. The fridge, too, was stocked with fruit and vegetables, a quart of milk, a box of butter, a loaf of bread, a carton of eggs. The small freezer even held a few frozen packs of meat. Kristov evidently did the supermarket shopping for his family; he hadn't missed a thing.

It occured to me then, as I took in how much food was there, that I had no idea where we were headed or how long it would take to get there. The idea of being alone with the Winter Soldier on this boat for as long as it would take to get through all of this food made my stomach flip nervously. _What the fuck am I doing?_

Before I could make up my mind to jump off the boat and run for my life, I was nearly knocked off my feet as the boat began moving. Pulling myself up I stumbled back across the cabin and into the navi booth. I watched out the large windshield as we pulled farther and farther away from the dock, swung around, and plunged forward into the black depths of the night sky.

"Hope you've got good sea legs," said Barnes, turning towards me. He looked haggard, but strangely serene, as if pulling away from the shore was a relief.

"Where are we going?" I asked. I hated how pathetic and nervous I sounded.

"Romania."

"And how long is that going to take?"

He cocked his head at me, and I would have sworn a ghost of an amused smile played at the corner of his mouth.

"Two weeks."


	5. Chapter 5

I stood over the stove flipping over a few strips of bacon on one burner and frying two eggs in the other. Two pieces of toast popped in the toaster I found buried in the back of one of the cabinets. Most mornings we would have cereal to conserve the food, but I thought that a hearty breakfast on the first day of the journey would set a good mood. The night before, Barnes had insisted that I take the bed, assuring me that he would be fine sleeping in the navi cabin so that he could keep watch. I was surprised to find how tired I was from the stress of the day and I fell asleep almost as soon as I collapsed onto the creaky mattress. When I awoke, sunlight was filtering in through the small port windows on either side of the cabin. I was relieved to find a french press and coffee in the kitchenette and when it was ready, I poured a mug for Barnes and brought it out to him.

When I saw his face I was sure that he had not slept a wink. His eyes were red and his posture sagged in the captain's chair, but he took the proffered mug gratefully. He closed his eyes as he sipped and I took the moment to give him a good once-over in the light of day. He had shrugged off the ragged hooded sweatshirt and sat in a stained gray t-shirt and worn jeans tucked into combat boots that had seen better days. His hair was unkempt and a little greasy, hanging limply to his shoulders like curtains around his pale, bony face. My eyes roved over the metal arm, as shiny and polished as if it had never been touched, except for the red star painted on the forearm that looked as though parts of it had been scrubbed.

"Tried to get it off," he said, startling me. He had caught me gaping at the star. "Acetone. Bleach. Anything I could think of. Didn't really work though. Obviously."

I nodded, unsure of what to say.

"Does it freak you out?" again he almost smirked, but didn't.

"A little," I admitted. Now it was my turn to smirk. "Does it freak you out?"

Barnes rolled his eyes. "Can I at least take a shower before you start psychoanalysing me? We have two weeks of time to fill."

I smile, genuinely this time, feeling a stab of pity for him in that moment.

"Yeah, of course. Hungry?"

I reflected on the interaction as I flipped the bacon strips, jumping back to avoid the fizzing grease leaping from the pan. I couldn't seem to get a handle on the nature of our relationship at this point. So much had happened, and yet, I had only met him some ten hours ago. He seemed… friendly, or at least willing to treat me kindly. But he was certainly keeping his distance. There was no trust yet. _We're going to have to change that if I'm going to get any good information from him_ , I thought as I plated up the food and buttered the toast.

He emerged from the tiny bathroom in a fresh pair of pants and a red henley shirt, running his flesh hand through his wet hair, followed by a burst of steam and the clean scent of generic shower gel. For some reason it made me blush and I turned back to the stove, annoyed by my girlish reaction and the thoughts that I refused to acknowledge skittering around the edges of my brain; a Pavlovian response to the smell of attractive man fresh out of the shower.

"On the table," I said, hoping my voice sounded even as I pointlessly shuffled the used dishes around on the countertop. When I recovered my wits, I joined him at the wobbly table.

"Thank you," he said gratefully, looking hungrily at the plate in front of him.

"Y/N," I supplied, and he looked up. "My name is Y/N."

He held my gaze for a split second and then nodded. "Right. Y/N. Looks good."

I flushed again, unsure why I was embarrassed, but I brushed it aside and dug into my food. We ate in awkward silence, punctuated by the light clanking of silverware against the plastic plates.

"So," I said, unable to stand the silence. "Where have you been staying all this time?"

"Here and there."

I frowned, annoyed by the vague response. "Surely you've been sleeping somewhere all these months."

He shrugged. "Sometimes."

"James," I said slowly, checking my tone, but purposefully using the wrong name. It worked, and his eyes snapped up, clearly irritated. "If this is going to work, for either of us, you need to talk to me. It's going to be a long two weeks on this boat if you won't open up a little. I can't help you if you don't help me."

He scowled down at his plate jabbing his fork at his egg like a stubborn child.

"It's the truth. A few days in a hotel, a few days in someone's shed, most days just walking around the streets. Different cities. Wherever I can get to under the radar. I don't…" he cut off, his frown deepening. "I don't really sleep. I can't."

I lean forward. "You don't sleep?"

He shrugged again. "My dreams are torture," he said simply. "All over again."

I'm back to pitying him then. "That's not too surprising, given what you've been through. When the brain experiences trauma, it tends to store it away. When you're awake you can block it out – you have to, sometimes, to survive, to function in everyday life. But when you're asleep your subconscious…" I trailed off, because he knows the rest. "We can work on it," I tried to assure him, "It'll be tough, but I can help you. You're going to have to trust me. I'm going to do my best."

He looked at me then, perhaps hearing my timid smile in my tone, and I got the feeling he was seeing me for the first time. I watched his eyes travel from my head to my hands splayed on the table in my earnest speech, and I felt self conscious of my own ratty hair and smudged makeup.

"Okay," he said at last. "I'll trust you." He took a deep breath and sat back in his chair. "What do you want to know?"


	6. Chapter 6

Time wasn't real on the boat. At least, that's how it felt to me. We settled immediately into a routine: me making breakfast while Barnes showered, him cleaning up while I showered, him retiring to the captain's chair for the afternoon while I made myself busy in the cabin prepping meals, taking inventory, tidying up, writing snatches of my thesis in a battered notebook I'd managed to remember to pack. We ate dinner together, and afterwords I would drag a chair into the navi cabin and we would look out at the sun setting behind the endless blanket of ocean.

That's when we would talk. Or mostly, he would, and I would listen, ask questions, and take notes. He told me about the HYDRA facility in Siberia: how many people worked there, what his cell looked like, what it felt like to go in and out of cryo-freeze. He was not emotional; he gave me the facts, as best as he could remember, and he remembered most of it. He told me there had been others like him, super soldier special ops created to be the deadliest mercenaries on Earth. He told me about the chair they strapped him to and the electromagnetic machine they used to zap his brain. This was the only time I saw him flinch out of the corner of my eye as he recounted. He told me about the notebook of words they used to activate him for duty. He didn't say what the words were. I didn't ask.

I went to bed. He didn't.

On Day 6, I put my foot down at dinner and insisted that he sleep on the couch that night or he would not be getting any meals cooked by me for the rest of the trip. I was worried and more than a little freaked out by his endless wakefulness. I had caught him dozing off in the captain's chair a few times, but only to shake himself and get up to pace the cabin. Ultimately he relented, and patiently allowed me to fling a moth eaten blanket over him as he lay like a mummy on the couch. I climbed into the squeaky bed, trying not to think about him being in the room with me, and turned out the light.

That was when he told me about the murders.

In the dark his voice was quieter than usual, tinted with melancholy and regret. I watched the stars dotting the black sky through the port window as he recited the assassinations to me, not as if he had been there, but as if he were reading me the timeline from a grim textbook. When he reached the end, his voice hollow and empty, I didn't say anything. I felt hot tears spilling down my cheeks as I lay staring up at the night sky, and wondered who they were for. I didn't sleep much that night. And I didn't hear a single snore from the couch.

On day 9 I was buzzing with cabin fever. I hunched over my bag and emptied it of it remaining contents, of which there were few. I was disappointed to discover after my first shower that the handful of undergarments I had grabbed from my drawer were only roughly 75% practical, and I was down now only to a few slinky lace pairs that were far more appropriate for a date night than…. what? Life as a pirate wench?

I decided to make an attempt at doing laundry in the tub and I trotted over to the cabin doorway to ask Barnes if he wanted me to do some of his clothes too. My mouth was open to speak when I saw him, hunched over in the captain's chair, mouth lolling open, snoozing soundly. I sighed, leaning on the door frame, and watched him for a moment. _Thank the stars_ , I thought as I turned back into the cabin.

A while later I was wrangling wet clothes from the sopping pile at my feet and attempting to tie and pin them onto a rope on the boat's deck to dry. It wasn't so windy today, and I was feeling optimistic about not losing any undergarments to the ocean. I whistled a tune while I worked.

"What the hell are you doing?"

I whipped my head around, startled by the sound of Barnes's voice.

"Laundry," I said brightly, trying for cheeky, but my face burned red with self consciousness. I was wearing only a pair of workout shorts and a lacy bralette that could almost pass as a bathing suit top. Almost. Oh, and I was holding a pair of his boxer briefs.

He was frowning at me, as was often the case it seemed, and he surveyed my shoddy handiwork. Irritated by his judgement I made a show of snapping the damp boxers and wrapping them around the rope. When I turned back, he was already back inside the glass room.

My mood dampened, I plucked up the last item from the pile, a towel, and made to hang it on the line. I paused looking up to check the location of the sun in the sky, and calculated I still had a few good hours of daylight left. I used the breeze to spread the towel flat, laid it on the hot deck, and then collapsed upon it, facing up to the clear blue sky. The cool towel felt heavenly on my back and I stretched like a cat, relaxing my arms and legs and offering myself to the afternoon sun.

Soon I was dozing, my mind sifting through different thoughts, wobbling uneasily through a kaleidoscope of images behind my eyes. Barnes, brooding on the other side of the table from me at the pub. Barnes, with wolffish eyes and fangs, fighting the two men in the alley. Barnes, sleeping slack jawed and fitfully in the captain's chair. Who was this man? What was going to happen when we got to Romania? This was a question I had not allowed myself to ruminate on, but as the days went by I had no choice. In my mind's eye I imagined us alighting upon an abandoned farm house, derelict but charming, with an overgrown vegetable patch and stray chickens in the yard. We hid out there, gardening, tending the fowl, talking about death and torture, and other things; art, and music… I imagined a turntable and a stack of records, gentle music through an open window….

"You're getting a sunburn."

His shadow fell across my face and the half-dream was chased away.

" _You're_ gonna get a sunburn," I grumbled sleepily, still not totally conscious as I peeled myself off of the deck. I felt his flesh hand around my forearm pulling me up, followed by an unmistakable burning pain. I hissed in a breath. "Shit. You're right."

Inside the cabin I inspected myself. Sure enough, my entire front was lobster pink. I couldn't help but pout childishly. Knowing how ridiculous I must look, I raised my eyes to him, hoping to at least get a laugh. As usual, he was frowning.

"Ow."

He didn't respond, but after a moment he cautiously reached out his metal hand and pressed it gently to my shoulder. I gasped in delight and closed my eyes before I could stop myself; the metal was so cool and smooth on the burn. I was thankful that at least with my face already bright red, he couldn't tell that I was blushing. I opened my eyes and looked up at him, and our gazes met for an intense moment that made my stomach do a tiny somersault. He pulled his hand quickly away and raked it through his hair, taking a step back.

"Looks like dinner's on me tonight," he said to the wall behind me, avoiding my eye. "Hope you like rice." He retreated to the kitchenette and I stood there another moment, spinning. Because this time, _he_ was blushing too.


	7. Chapter 7

In the evening on day 11, I sat stiffly on the couch trying to scribble a few passages of my thesis, but thanks to my lack of sleep due to sunburn pain, I was not getting very far. I had spent much of the last two days laying flat on my back feeling feverish and dehydrated, scolding myself for so carelessly courting sun poisoning. Barnes had managed to follow some box directions and cook up some pasta for us as I recovered, and by this point I was feeling more or less myself, if not crabby, tired, and bored. Outside there was a torrential downpour of rain, and the boat rocked heavily back and forth on the choppy waves. It didn't make me feel sick, but it did make me a little nervous for the state of our autopilot system. When I heard a thunderclap overhead, I cursed and threw the notebook down on the coffee table. I was beginning to worry about Barnes in the glass booth in this storm, so I mentally prepared myself to peel off the couch and look for him. The cabin door opened then and he fumbled in, shaking rainwater out of his hair like a scruffy dog.

"What were you doing, standing on the deck waiting to get zapped to death?" I asked incredulously. I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth, considering he had spent seventy years being zapped nearly to death. I flushed with shame.

"Digging out life jackets," he responded, apparently nonplussed by my callousness, and I swallowed nervously. "Just in case. And I found this buried in one of the compartments." In one hand he held up two orange vests, and in the other, a gallon-sized glass bottle filled with amber liquid. "Rum."

I perked up at that. "It's a pirate's life for me. Surprising from a Ruski, but I'm not complaining. Shall we open it?"

Barnes shrugged and tossed the life jackets on the bed, fetched two glasses from the kitchenette, and brought them and the bottle over to the coffee table. He sat on the floor opposite me instead of in the armchair and proceeded to pour two hefty glasses of rum, sliding one across the table to me.

"Cheers," I said lifting it to him, and I really did feel cheered; the rain and prospect of a few drinks made for a nice change in the usual routine.

We were quiet as we drank the first glass, feeling awkward having no distracting view of the ocean to look at. I wished desperately for some music, saddened remembering I had to leave my cell phone at home so that it could not be tracked. As I poured and began to sip my second drink, however, I began to feel more relaxed and confident.

At length, I asked him, "What are we going to do when we get to Romania?"

He took a large swig from his glass. "I put down three months' rent on a shitty apartment in Bucharest. That's where the boat will dock. Found the landlady online. She told me I could pay under the table so long as I acted as a sort of security for the building. I guess she's been having some trouble with squatters coming in at night." Another swig. "Once we get there I'll look for a job. And we'll just… figure it out."

"A job where?" I asked, skeptical.

"At the shipyard, or a factory, construction, something like that. There's always someone willing to bend the rules for some good, old-fashioned manual labor. It won't be a problem."

I was surprised and reassured by his confidence. "We should come up with a story."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Story?"

"Yeah," I leaned forward, wincing as my burned thighs rubbed against the couch. "Anytime two people are involved in a crime, they have to agree on the story. When you trust another person with your darkest secrets, you have to be on the same page. That's where it all comes apart when the chips fall." I sipped some rum. "So, what's ours?"

"You watch too much television," Barnes drawled, rolling his eyes at me. "I'm not much for imagination."

"Alright," I said, tapping my nail lightly on the glass in my hand, "I've got an idea. I'm a psychiatrist, and you were my patient. You started seeing me because you were dealing with… some kind of chaotic situation at home that you wanted to escape. We decide to elope and run away together to start our lives over in Bucharest. It's not terribly far from the truth, easy to remember, and people won't want to pry into our personal business. It would explain why we are laying low or off the grid in case anyone decides to look into us for some reason. For a while, at least."

Barnes hardly looked up from his glass, apparently unenthused, but he shrugged and nodded. "Sure. Guess it can't hurt to be prepared in case anyone asks."

We were silent for a few minutes, me feeling satisfied with my contribution to the plan, when he spoke up again.

"Why aren't you a psychiatrist? Why criminal psychology?"

It was the first time he had ever asked me a direct question about myself, and I was momentarily taken aback.

"I guess I've always been interested in crime, really. And good at reading people. And I thought I could do something helpful, contribute to society, fight some bad guys. I wanted to be a detective, but I didn't really have the people skills. As you might have noticed," I said with a small chuckle, alluding to the grizzly bartender I had been unsuccessful in charming when searching for Andrej Kliment.

Barnes actually smirked slightly as he deadpanned, "Yeah, you really had him on the ropes, there."

"What about you?" I asked him as I poured my third glass of rum. "Do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up?"

He frowned at the question, apparently mining through his memories for a few moments before he responded. "I don't really know. It was different back then; all we knew was war. The best way a man could distinguish himself in life was to join the army. I came of age when the most honorable thing a guy could do was fight. The only thing I ever wanted to be was a soldier." He snorted bitterly at that. "Guess all my dreams came true."

His words cut like a knife, and I felt deeply sorry for him. "You were a good soldier once," I offered kindly, "when you were with Steve Rogers. You guys changed the course of the war."

He only shrugged at that, looking down at his boots and swirling the last sip of rum in his glass before downing it. I quickly slid the bottle back to him, afraid he was going to get up and leave now that his mood was ruined. I cast around my brain looking for a segway to a more lighthearted topic, and found that I had become quite drunk. A question popped into my head and I began to speak it before what was left of my sober mind was able to tamp it down.

"Can I 'skyou a personal question?"

"Why not."

Somewhere in the back of my mind was echoing NOOOO, but the drunken devil on my shoulder egged me on. "You and Steve," I began, and paused, not sure how to continue. He looked at me expectantly and I felt myself blushing again. Sitting forward, I tried again.

"You an' Steve. Were you guys, like…" I trailed off a second time, making useless swirling gestures with my free hand that did not seem to help Barnes understand where I was going with my question. I could hear myself start to slur a little as I stumbled on, but I was beginning not to care. "I mean, I know that kind of stuff was like, not as cool back then as it is now. 'Specially in the military. I mean, he, like, went against S.H.I.E.L.D. for you an' stuff. That's deep." I swallow another sip. Barnes was looking at me like I was talking nonsense. I realized I probably was.

"Like," I held my hand out for emphasis, trying to stay on the path of the question that seemed to be getting more and more lost, "I totally get it. He's hot, you're hot, you guys were like, out there all alone together and shit. I mean it's like that cowboy movie. Like duh, of course you remembered him all those years later! Love an' shit! Boyfriends!" I raise triumphant hands, proud of myself, and looked at him excitedly for a response.

His brow was furrowed in confusion as he processed my words, until finally, his mouth opened in a small O as he pieced together my meaning.

"No, no. No no no no. It wasn'like that." He was slurring a little too, I noticed. "No, there was nothing… I mean, I guess he's good-looking, never really thought abou'it… but no," he stated firmly, raising his hands in front of him and crossing his arms like an X in front of him, "just friends. 'S'more like brothers, really. Steve's like m'brother. Was."

"Al-riiight," I hitch my voice to an exaggerating tone of disbelief, "if you say so!" I was giggling, feeling bold and a little silly.

"You're drunk," he accused, smirking again and pointing at me.

"No, you are," I point back, and then laugh. "Prove it!"

"You just called me hot."

I felt my jaw drop open and cheeks flame as I realized he was right, but drunken confidence took over and I contorted my face into a snooty expression. I sat up straight and crossed one leg daintily over the other.

"I said what I said. You're welcome."

He met my eyes for a moment and I couldn't read the emotion there; possibly nervousness? Then he rolled them and got to his feet.

"Time for bed, Your Highness. I think we've had enough. You can appreciate my hotness in the morning."

I stood up too, swaying a little as the boat rocked, and made my way cautiously over to the bathroom to get ready for bed. In the doorway I turned back to him and gave him a devilish smile.

"Maybe I will."

With a cheeky wink, I shut the door on him.


	8. Chapter 8

Barnes woke me at 4:00 in the morning on the fourteenth day, and out the porthole window I could see the city of Bucharest looming out of the darkness. We had spent the previous day packing up our own things as well as any items from the boat that we could fit, such as sheets, towels, silverware; anything that the apartment was unlikely to have already, although it was furnished.

We would be hitting land in a secluded channel in an alleyway at the edge of the city, Barnes had informed me, and needed to cut our path carefully to the main streets as we were avoiding passport checks.

"We'll have to be quick. There are always eyes out for rogue ships," he told me.

"I'll do my best, but I'm no super-soldier," I told him. "Not much of a runner."

He did not reply, but I suspected he was irritated and stressed. I couldn't help but feel guilty; I was slowing him down. Not only that, but he had paid for only a small apartment that was likely to only have one bed. Adding me into the equation screwed up his entire plan. My stomach did a small flip at the idea of us trapped in another small space together for an unknown length of time.

As the boat ghosted down a brick alleyway, I took one last look around the cabin. For so many days I had been dying to get out, but as the moment of departure drew near, I felt a pang to leave the snug space.

"Time to go." Barnes's curt voice sliced through my reverie and I tightened my bag's straps to my shoulders, took a breath, and headed out onto the deck.

The sky was was still dark, but beginning to turn gray as the sun threatened to chase away the night's chill. The boat slowed as it approached a concrete platform at the mouth of a dark tunnel, and I felt goosebumps rise over my arms at the haunting sight through the early morning fog. At last the boat reached a swaying stop, and I cast one more glance over my shoulder at it. Barnes lept first onto the platform, graceful as a cat, and in one fluid movement turned around to hold his hands out to assist me. I was much slower, my feet wobbly and unsure with their first touch to solid ground in two weeks.

"Alright. Let's go. Quickly."

Barnes took off down the tunnel. I followed at my best pace with the weight of my bag on my shoulders, but needless to say, I did not keep pace with him. We scurried through the tunnel for a few minutes before I saw the other side through the fog. As we reached the mouth, Barnes threw his hand out to stop me.

"You're too slow."

I was too winded to speak, so I threw up my hands in helpless exasperation. After a moment, Barnes let out a heavy sigh and removed his bag from his shoulders, swinging it around and putting it back on so that it was on the front of his body. Then he turned his back to me and squatted down to my height.

I gaped at him.

"You've got to be kidding me."

"Nope," he said sharply, "and there's no time to argue. We need to move. It's only a matter of time before the boat is spotted. _Let's. Go._ "

Rolling my eyes, I stepped forward and locked my arms around my neck as securely as I could.

"Legs too."

I felt my face burning as I lifted my legs up and wrapped them around his waist and he stood up easily, as though I were as light as a down pillow. He was strong and solid beneath me; I could feel his sturdy shoulder muscles and the joint where his metal arm met his torso beneath my arms. It sent a nervous jump to my heart as he began to run, and I clutched my limbs around him for dear life. The world began to rush past me at the rate of a speeding car as he ran, jolting down alleyways, quickly rounding corners, ducking behind dumpsters. I clenched my jaw and buried my head into his shoulder, feeling increasingly nauseous. As we sped through the cracks of Bucharest, I wondered briefly how he knew where to go. _Must be a super-soldier thing_ , I thought to myself. _This is the Winter Soldier I'm seeing right now. Speed, stealth, adrenaline._

At last, after what I guessed to be about thirty minutes of running, he stopped in an alley and crouched down to let me get off his back. My legs were stiff and store from squeezing him and I stumbled a moment as he switched his bag back to the right direction.

"Almost there. I think we should be on schedule. I told the landlady to expect me–us–around 6:00 to get the key. You alright there, doll?"

I had my hands on my knees and my head lowered as I took deep, calming breaths, waiting for the nausea to pass. My face must have been green when I looked up at him because his brow creased and he flinched back.

"I'm… fine," I said hoarsely, taking in one more bracing breath and standing up slowly.

"You were on a boat for two weeks and never got sick once, but one piggy-back ride and you're about to toss your cookies?"

I shot him an annoyed look and he looked almost amused, but he didn't smile.

We stepped onto the main street and I followed in Barnes's footsteps as he led the way. The block around us was old and run-down, with crumbling facades, broken shutters, and chipped paint. I began to feel nervous and I drew closer to Barnes, the back of my mind wondering to what lengths he would go to protect me if something bad happened. I thought about the men in the alley that first night, shuddered, and reached out with my sweaty palm to clutch his elbow. He shot me a glance over his shoulder but did not shake me off.

After a few blocks, each more depressing than the next, we arrived outside a tall apartment building that appeared to be roughly seven or eight stories tall. We approached the door and Barnes rang the buzzer with a star scribbled next to it. I raised my eyebrows in alarm as I saw him check his waistband and pulled out the hilts of a few small knives buried somewhere in his jeans.

"Wait here," he told me when the door buzzed, disappearing inside before I could ask what the knives were for, and I was left alone on the stoop, gaping at my reflection. I turned back to the street and looked around; the sun was rising in earnest now, and a few people came spilling out of front doors into the streets with jackets and bags and children. One block up, I saw a corner store flip on its neon OPEN sign, and across from that a small woman emerged from a tiny laundromat, propping the door open with a jamb. Past that, I could see down the road a large, Roman-style building at odds with the rest of the architecture, although just as shabby, and I squinted at the sign out front. I couldn't read the Romanian words, but I could make out an etched drawing of a book and my heart leapt: a library. I whirled around as the door opened again and Barnes was there, holding a key and beckoning me inside.

Four floors up, we came to a stop outside the door at the far end of the hallway.

"Lucky number 13," I grumbled unenthusiastically as Barnes let us inside.

Incredibly, it was worse than I expected. It was tiny, a studio room with a bathroom tucked in the rear, and completely barren except for an iron bed pushed against the back wall, a ratty sofa slumped facing a coffee table on the left side, and a small dresser wedged in the corner with an ugly old lamp on top. To the right of the doorway was the kitchen: a stove, fridge, and an island countertop with no accompanying stools. The walls were stained from water damage and crumbling in spots, and there was exposed piping connecting to a wheezy radiator next to the bed.

"Welcome home," Barnes intoned hollowly, and dropped his bag on the floor with a tired sigh. "I better go and get some things to fill the fridge." He turned to look at me. "You okay here if I go?"

I nodded, although I was nervous as all hell. Still, I didn't hate the idea of a few minutes alone to shake out two weeks' worth of nerves. As he turned back towards the door he paused, pulling one of the knives out of his pocket and handing it to me.

"Put that somewhere you can get to easily if you need to." And with that, he was gone.

I stared at the knife in my hands for what felt like a long time, wondering what the fuck I would do with it if there was an intruder. Ultimately I placed it on top of the refrigerator and said a quick prayer that I would never need to find out.

I spent the next hour making up the bed with the sheets from the boat, stacking the towels in the tiny bathroom cupboard, and folding my clothes into the wobbly dresser, all the while fantasizing about the laundromat down the street. I found an old knit blanket in the bottom drawer that I draped over the back of the couch for Barnes, guessing he would most likely make me take the bed. I wondered if he would ever be able to sleep here.

When I ran out of tasks I sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at my hands, and wondering for the umpteenth time, _what the fuck am I doing?_

Barnes returned soon with two armfuls of groceries. As I set to putting them away, I heard him speak over my shoulder from the other side of the counter.

"This is the money we have left. We need to make it last until Friday at least. That's when I will, in theory, get paid for whatever job I find tomorrow. You should be in charge of it, since you'll be here all day and will know what we'll need."

I nodded, but I felt a little numb. This was all so overwhelming. "And if you don't find a job?"

"I will."

There was a finality to his words and I didn't press further. What could I do at this point but trust him? He had gotten us this far, after all.

"You take the bed," he instructed.

"Are you sure? You haven't slept in days. How are you going to do manual labor if you can't even stand up?" I turned to him, frowning.

His eyes grew soft as he took in my expression. "You worried about me? If I don't get my beauty sleep, I'll lose all my hotness?" he teased, and the ghost smile was back, just touching the corners of his mouth.

"A little," I admitted in a small voice, ignoring the banter and crossing my arms.

He sighed. "Okay. I will try to sleep tonight, on the couch." He flinched a little as he said it, and I felt another stab of pity. The dreams must be pure hell to elicit that reaction.

Tentatively I uncrossed my arms and reached out to briefly brush his flesh hand with my fingertips before settling my elbows on the counter across from him.

"I… I'll be here," I told him even more quietly, "if you need… anything. Remember I promised you we could work on this." I raised my eyes to his and there was sadness there, but warmth and gratitude, too.

"Thank you," he all but whispered back, and gave me the closest thing I'd seen to a smile yet.


	9. Chapter 9

The apartment gradually grew dim and dark as the sun set on our first day in Bucharest. I had ventured out to the corner store with a measly sum of money and purchased a few cleaning items, and Barnes and I had spent the remainder of the day scrubbing the floors and tiles in the apartment. By the time it was time to make dinner, the studio was in a livable condition at least.

With no dining table, I brought two paper plates of food over to the couch and handed one to Barnes, squeezing in next to him on the sofa. It was too small for us to keep a casual distance; we each ended up perched awkwardly on the far edge of the cushions on an angle so that our thighs were not pressed together, but our knees kept bumping as we silently ate our meal. The lone lamp cast threatening shadows on the barren walls around us that seemed to amplify the silence, and I wished more than ever for a radio.

Barnes seemed to read my mind. Clearing his throat, he told me, "A few blocks from here there is a secondhand store where we can probably get some things for the house once we have a little more cash. I took a look when I went out earlier. We can get some clothes, too."

"Is the building up the street a library?" I asked abruptly, remembering the sign out front of the Roman-style building.

"Yep," he nodded, "which is fortunate. We can use the internet there."

I smiled. "And borrow books, of course!"

He cocked his head thoughtfully. "I can't remember the last time I read a book, to be honest. I wouldn't even know what to pick."

"Harry Potter," I said automatically, widening my eyes as I realized he had probably been frozen–or murdering people–when they first came out. "Oh my God! I'm so jealous. I wish I could go back and read it for the first time." I was grinning now and bouncing a little in my chair with excitement.

"I have no idea what that means, but if you're that excited, I'll have to give it a try." He smiled at me then, a real smile, all colored-in with warmth and friendliness. I flushed and smiled back, and for the first time felt something like friendship blooming between us as opposed to just cohabitation.

A few hours later I emerged from the bathroom in my pajamas and turned down the sheets to crawl into bed. Barnes was laying back on the sofa in a soft-looking faded white t-shirt, his metal arm behind his head.

"You're going to get some sleep, right?" I chided him. He sighed and I saw him roll his eyes at me before I switched off the light.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

I smiled to myself as I almost instantly fell into a deep sleep.

My eyes flew open and were met with nothing but pitch darkness. All I could hear was the screaming.

" _NO! NO! NO, PLEASE NOT AGAIN!_ "

I scrabbled out of the bed, my feet getting tangled in the sheets on the way.

"Barnes?!" I cried out, my voice high and wobbly, "Barnes? Barnes!"

Smacking my legs into the back of the couch in the dark, I nearly tumbled over it. I could see a white shape on the floor, ghostly and terrifying as it kicked out maniacally. I was sure Barnes was fighting someone, but it was only his screams that I could hear.

" _NO! DON'T TOUCH ME! GET AWAY! NOOO!_ "

I considered going for the knife on the fridge, but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I realized Barnes was alone on the ground. Heart pounding, I rounded the couch and fell to my knees beside him, trying to grasp his flailing fists. _He's having a nightmare_ , I realized, the thought bringing both relief and horror. Relief that there was no intruder. Horror at the reality of the scene in front of me.

"Barnes!" I grabbed helplessly at his hands, but he was too strong for me and pulled from my grasp. I dropped my entire body weight on his torso, slapping his shoulders and cheeks, trying to wake him. "Barnes! BUCKY! BUCKY, WAKE UP!"

The wind rushed out of me as his metal fist collided with my gut and I was momentarily knocked back, but I ignored the pain and kept trying to slam his fists to the ground, trying to scream his name.

At last, he let out a huge gasp and shot up, nearly headbutting me as I leaned over him. In the moonlight I could see his eyes were round as saucers as he whipped his head around and tried to place where he was. I fell back against the base of the couch, gasping for air and clutching my stomach. When I got my breath back, I asked him,

"Bucky, are you alright?"

His eyes snapped to me and after a moment he seemed to register who I was. His eyes darted down to my hand on my gut.

"Did…. did I hurt you?" his voice was barely a whisper, and he was taking deep, shaky breaths as his panic subsided.

"It's okay," I said, quickly snatching my hand away and reaching out to touch his flesh arm. "I'm okay. Everything's fine."

He continued to stare wide-eyed at me, panting and shaking, and I caressed his arm tenderly. When he still did not move, I got onto my knees and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, tucking his head into my chest, and began to rock slowly back and forth.

"It's okay. You're okay. It was just a dream. Everything's okay. We're fine now. It's just you and me. You're okay."

After a few moments of me chanting, I felt his hands clutching at the back of my shirt, which was clammy from the struggle. Soon after, I felt wetness in the crook of my neck and my heart broke in half as I realized that he was crying. I pulled him closer and kept rocking, shooshing, and stroking his hair, and found that there were tears in my eyes too. This poor, broken man in my arms was as frightened as a child. All of that stiff coldness he put on was hiding an ocean of pain deeper than I had ever imagined.

I don't know how long we sat there on the floor, rocking back and forth, crying. It could have been hours, or minutes. When the tears subsided, though, my knees were numb and sore on the hard floor. When I pulled away, Bucky met my eyes, and I almost teared up again at the pain I saw swimming in their depths.

"I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely, and I immediately reached out to embrace him again.

"Don't," my voice wobbled, "don't, it's okay, don't you apologize to me. It's okay."

We pulled apart again; Bucky scrubbed his hands over his face and took a final deep breath before climbing to his feet. He reached his hand out, pulling me up, and walked me over to the bed. I climbed in and he helped me straighten the covers, then I scooted so that my back was pressed flat against the wall and looked up at him, tapping the sheet next to me. It was not a lot of space, but he looked grateful as he climbed in next to me. At last I fell asleep, the weight of his metal arm wrapped around me like a shield from the rest of the cruel universe that had made the Winter Soldier cry.


	10. Chapter 10

When I opened my eyes the next morning, gray dawn filtered in through the grimy window, and the sheet next to me was long abandoned. Slowly I climbed out of the creaky bed, shaking out my stiff knees, and gave the apartment a cursory once-over. Bucky was gone.

I tried not to worry as I poured myself a bowl of cereal, but I could not keep out the nagging panic at the idea that Bucky might not come back. Was he so embarrassed by last night that he would abandon me here, alone in a foreign city a billion miles from home? I didn't want to believe so, especially considering that I had felt a thread of friendship growing between us, but perhaps he had felt too uncomfortable being so vulnerable in front of me. As I ate I kept glancing at the door, jumping every time I thought I heard the key in the lock, but it stayed shut tight.

I decided to venture out into the neighborhood rather than sitting around and waiting, so once I had showered and dressed, I made my way down the street to the library.

A woman in her late fifties seated at the front desk smiled and greeted me in Romanian, and I smiled back and made an attempt at returning the greeting, although I could tell my accent was terrible. She raised her eyebrows and I apologized in English, flustered and forgetting the Romanian word.

"You are American?" her smile widened even further when I nodded sheepishly, and I was more than relieved when she repeated her welcome to me in accented English, introducing herself as Maria. When I told her my name and that I had just moved in up the street, she clapped her hands together and began pulling tri-fold pamphlets out of every desk drawer and tossed them to me: maps of the city, farmers' market schedules, charity events, library fundraisers. On an old desktop computer she pulled up a street map of the neighborhood and insisted upon printing it off for me and marking it with indications of the best places to eat and shop. When she returned from the office with the printed paper, she also held a steaming hot cup of coffee, which she pressed into my hands. I took it from her, and almost immediately inexplicably burst into tears.

Poor Maria's jaw dropped as she scurried around the desk to wrap a tender arm around my shoulders although she was nearly a foot smaller than me, pulling a wad of tissues from her pocket.

"I'm so sorry!" I blubbered, taking the tissues and mopping my cheeks with them. "It's been a very long journey to get here, it's so nice to find a friendly face. My–my husband," I stammered, recalling the story I had crafted for Bucky and me, "is… ill, and…" I trailed off, trying to get control of my emotions. With a deep breath, I gave her a watery smile and said, "Thank you for being so kind."

Maria gave me a tight squeeze and a few more pamphlets, and ten minutes later she handed me my new library card and sent me on my way, imploring me to come back and see her soon. I thanked her repeatedly as I stuffed the literature into my bag and shuffled out the door.

I spent the next few hours walking around the neighborhood, holding Maria's printed map in my hands and matching the checkpoints she had marked for me. It felt good to stretch my legs after being cramped in the boat for so long, and I found that I was loathe to return to the dark, dingy apartment. Especially if I was going to be alone.

The thought made my stomach drop. What would I do if Bucky did not come back? I wondered if one of the maps in my bag showed the location of an American Embassy. What would I tell them? That I had been kidnapped by the Winter Soldier, dragged to Romania, and given a library card?

Eventually I made my way back to the apartment as hunger began to gnaw at my gut. My heart hammered as I unlocked number 13 and pushed inside.

The room was empty.

Sighing, I dumped by bag onto the coffee table and set to work in the kitchen cutting vegetables for dinner.

I zoned out as I worked, shuffling memories like a deck of cards in front of my mind's eye, wondering how in the hell I had ended up here. I was foolish, I realized, in my dogged pursuit of knowledge and status, and if this all went to shit, I would pay dearly for it. I was sure that I did not have enough information in my notes to complete my thesis, not to mention that I could be in serious trouble for travelling illegally if the truth came out. Oddly more troubling, though, was the deepening sadness I felt at the idea of never seeing Bucky Barnes again.

I was stirring a large pot mindlessly and fretting, when I heard the lock turn on the door. Whipping around, relief crashed over me as Bucky edged through the entrance. He stopped when he saw me staring, cocking his head and giving me an awkward wave.

"Hey," he said.

Suddenly, relief melted into fury, and without thinking, I whipped the wooden spoon at him. He dodged it easily and whirled back to me, his face a mixture of alarm and amusement.

"What the hell was that for?"

"I thought you weren't coming back!" I huffed, planting my hands on my hips so as not to be tempted to throw any more utensils.

Bucky balked at that. " I told you I was going out to find a job today. Why in the world would I not come back? Where else do I have to go?"

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the stove, casting around for a replacement for the spoon, and I was annoyed to find tears pricking the corners of my eyes for the second time that day. I heard his footsteps coming up behind me and shut my eyes as I felt his warm hand press gently on my hip.

"What is it, doll? I'm sorry, I didn't want to wake you when I left, you were sleeping so peacefully. I didn't mean to scare you."

"It's alright," I mumbled, refusing to look at him, blinking hard to clear the traitorous tears away, "I just thought maybe after… after last night, you wouldn't… " I gulped, unsure how to say what I meant.

Tugging on my hip he forced me to turn to him; I stared at his chest so as not to meet his eyes and crossed my arms defensively, feeling silly now for my worry and especially so for my tantrum. Sighing, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him, rubbing little circles on my back. After a few moments I began to relax, dropping my stiff arms and circling them around his torso to return his embrace.

"I'm not going anywhere. I would never leave you alone like that," he murmured close to my ear, and I shuddered a little in spite of myself as I felt his breath tickle my neck.

"I know. I'm sorry for thinking that."

He pulled back, looked into my eyes, and smiled. "Don't you apologize to me," he quoted my words from last night back to me, and I had to smile, too. We lingered there a long moment, inches apart, and I could have sworn I saw his eyes dart down to my lips and back. Heart pounding I stepped away and turned again towards the stove, clearing my throat.

"So, how did the job search go, then?"

"Good." The counter creaked a little as he leaned his muscular frame against it. "Got hired-on at a factory near the water. Mostly just loading and unloading heavy stuff from boat to truck. When the guy saw how much I could lift, he was willing to agree to any of my terms."

I glanced at him, impressed. "That's great. Will you get paid this week?"

"Yep. Then I can _treat my wife to all the finer things a man can offer a lady_ ," he adopted an exaggerated southern twang as he said it, making me snort with laughter. To my surprise, I felt his hand on my shoulder again, and he leaned around to place a small kiss on my temple before retreating to the bathroom to take a shower. I tried not to think about it too much as I finished cooking, but my body was buzzing with the warmth that radiated from the spot where Bucky's lips had been.


	11. Chapter 11

Things had shifted between Bucky and me after that first night in Bucharest. Gone were the uncomfortable silences, the awkward side stepping, the stiffness in the way we interacted with each other. Now we talked the way friends would, teasing one another and speaking without the self-consciousness I had become accustomed to when we would have our after-dinner chats on the boat. Now when he talked about his past, I could hear his feelings in his words, his sadness and pain with each memory he divulged to me. I could see how hard it was for him to speak the words out loud, but with every new horror story that he let past the gates of his lips, I saw him become softer, more relaxed.

He was casually affectionate with me, too, often pressing a hand to my back to peer over my shoulder at what was cooking on the stove, or giving my knee a quick squeeze before getting up off the couch. And, of course, there were the nights.

Every night I would crawl into the bed while Bucky lay on the couch, and I would reach over and shut off the light. We would lay silently in the dark for a few minutes, and then I would hear the couch creak as he got to his feet and padded over to the side of the bed. I pulled down the covers for him and scooted to the far wall like I had that first night, and he would climb in beside me.

"I'm sorry," he would whisper, "the darkness, it's playing tricks on my eyes–"

"Don't you apologize to me," I whispered back, and stroked his hair until I fell asleep.

He was always gone when I woke in the morning, off to meet the cargo ships arriving at dawn, and I would wonder if he had slept at all. When he came home, I started noticing the bags under his eyes were a little less pronounced, his skin a little more saturated, his posture a little stronger. I tried not to wonder too much if he was sleeping because he was talking through his trauma with me, or because he was spending the nights wrapped in my arms.

On Friday evening he brought home an envelope full of cash, his first paycheck, which he handed straight to me to deal with. I wondered to myself how he would use it if I was not here, if he would bother to purchase things like extra furniture or decorations to hang on the walls. This is precisely what I did the next day while he put in overtime at work: I ventured to the secondhand store and spent hours perusing the surprisingly large selection. I had to hire a taxi to cart all of my purchases back to the apartment and pay the driver to help me carry it all up to number 13. After that, I paid a visit to Maria at the library, and so I was in high spirits by the time Bucky came through the door that evening.

Looking around with eyebrows raised, he took in my haul: two vintage diner stools tucked under the linoleum countertop, a hideously upholstered chair squeezed in next to the sofa around the coffee table, a few odd framed paintings tacked up on the walls, a tulip shaped floor lamp near the living area. His eyes landed on me, loading mismatched china plates and glasses into the cupboard, singing along to the music crackling through the air. I looked up at him and he was smiling warmly at me.

"What," he said, raising his hand to point past me, "is that?"

I grinned. "It's a boombox! I about screamed when I saw it at the thrift store. Looks just like the one I had when I was in middle school!"

"'Boombox?'" Bucky looked at the squat speaker apprehensively.

"It's a radio," I said, pointing to the station numbers currently lit up on the display, "but it also plays CDs and cassette tapes. Which means I can borrow them from the library to listen to! That reminds me, I was thinking, if you want, I could give you, like, a music education. Since you've been out of the loop for half a century." I winked at him, beaming. He smiled back and hooked his flesh arm around my neck, pulling me in close and pecking my cheek.

"That would be great, doll."

My face was scorching as I asked him, "Hey, can you read Romanian, or just speak it?"

"I can read it. Why?"

I turned to my bag on the counter and withdrew a paperback book: _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_ in Romanian. I presented it to him with only slightly exaggerated reverence.

"Here you go, you've been blessed by Miss Rowling," I told him solemnly. Bucky took the book but caught my hand before I could turn back to the cabinet.

"I think it's you I've been blessed by," he said, his voice warm and a little husky as he locked his eyes on mine, "Thank you. For… all of this." I swallowed, hard, and giggled nervously.

"Don't mention it. Are… are you working tomorrow? If not, I could use your muscle."

He smiled again. "Nope. My muscle is all yours." He wiggled his eyebrows and I smacked him.

"Good. It's laundry day."

"But how do the owls know where to go with the mail?"

We were walking down the street to the laundromat, me carrying a bottle of detergent and box of dryer sheets, Bucky with all of our clothes, towels, and sheets slung in a sack over his shoulder. He had been up reading Harry Potter half the night before he had finally crawled into bed next to me and snaked his arms around my waist.

"Of all of the crazy things in the book, I cannot believe that this is what you're stuck on," I laughed at him, bumping his hip with mine as we walked. When we arrived, we filled three washers and I taught Bucky how to start them. We squeezed together thigh to thigh on a small bench, his arm draped across the back behind me, watching our clothes spinning round and round as we talked about the Wizarding World.

I studied his profile as he talked. Sun was shining in through the shop's windows, catching a few strands of reddish hair among his stubble and around his temples in it's light. A few tiny freckles dotted his cheek, I noticed, and his eyes were the brightest and clearest of blues. He looked relaxed, healthy, completely different from the way he had looked when I first sat across from him in that pub booth. My eyes snagged on his lips as they moved, and my stomach did a somersault as I wondered what it might feel like to kiss them. At that moment the washing machines beeped their doneness in succession, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Bucky looked at me curiously, but I ignored him and scurried over to get the first load.

The alluring image of his lips and his bright blue eyes were still haunting me that night when he pulled the clean sheets around us in the squeaky bed. I tensed a little when he ran a hand through my hair and he paused, noticing.

"What is it, doll?" his voice was sleepy.

"Nothing, Buck," I said, nuzzling into his chest so that he couldn't see my face. "Get some sleep." In a matter of minutes he was breathing deeply and I sighed, confused as hell. _What does this all mean? What the fuck are we doing?_


	12. Chapter 12

I spent the week in agony, overthinking every interaction that passed between Bucky and me. I tried in vain to act cool when he kissed my cheek or caressed my arm in passing, acting like it didn't fluster me when he teased me about calling him "hot" and about being his fake wife. I honestly had no idea what our relationship was now, and my stomach knotted up every time I wondered how he felt about me.

We had a new routine now: he went to work, and I went to the library to write for a few hours. Often I would bring sandwiches from the corner store to share with Maria for lunch, where I would tell her all about the man I had "married" without even knowing who he was. For the most part I told her the truth; after all, the dynamic of our relationship hardly gave our identities away. She was sympathetic with me and my confusion, enraptured by my apparent whirlwind American romance, and I felt guilty when I had to lie to her.

I would return home in the afternoon and tidy the apartment while I started on dinner. Bucky came home, sometimes with grocery replenishments on his arms, and gave me a little squeeze before going to take a shower. I tried extremely hard not to imagine him in there.

At dinner we talked about our days, and about Harry Potter, as he was halfway through the second book already and I was delighted that he was enjoying it so much. As he washed the dishes I would ask him questions from my notes about details I needed for my thesis, and he would tell me anything I needed to know. Then we would curl up on the sofa together in companionable silence, and each read our respective books. He would absently stroke my thigh, and my eyes would defocus, completely unable to concentrate. Yes, this was absolute, maddening, terrific agony.

There was still plenty of money leftover by Friday, so I had bought a bottle of red wine as a treat to go with dinner that evening. When he emerged from his shower I handed him a glass as he sat at the counter across from me and he raised his eyebrows, asking,

"What's the occasion?"

"No reason," I told him, taking a sip of my own half-empty glass. My cheeks were already warm from the drink. "I think we've earned it, don't you?"

"Absolutely," he replied, and I was rewarded with his warmest smile. My heart did an annoying pitter-patter.

"I thought we could start your music education," I said and reached up to switch the radio over to the CD setting. Before I pressed play, I turned back to him, setting my wine glass down on the counter and adopting a prim, teacher-like pose. He folded his hands and sat up straight like a perfect student, making me giggle. I was feeling a tad buzzed from the wine, I realized.

"Your first lesson," I began, "is the late, great King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley." Bucky showed no sign of recognition at the name, so I continued. "He's one of the most famous musicians of all time. Basically, he got famous for being a white person performing blues music. But he was hot and pretty damn good at it, and gradually he put his own twist on it, and it became rock and roll." I shrugged at my fairly lame, watered down explanation. Bucky was squinting at me and I did not think I was doing a very good job at teaching. I considered for a moment, taking another sip of wine.

"You know jazz, right?" I asked him. "You guys would, like, sock-hop or whatever to that back in the day?"

Bucky rolled his eyes at me. "Yes doll, I know what jazz is."

I chuckled. "So jazz is like this:" I stepped back, brought an imaginary saxophone to my lips, and began humming, imitating a jazzy riff to the tune of "In The Mood". Getting into it, I brought one hand down and pretended to double tap a swing beat on a high-hat cymbal, making _tss tss_ noises with my tongue. I indulged for a few moments and then gave a bow as Bucky applauded my performance, wearing a big smile.

"Thank you, thank you," I took another sip of wine. "So then that evolved into blues, which is more like…" this time I did a bass guitar, singing a bassy _bum bum bum_ rhythm at a quick pace. I tossed in the high-hat sound next, and then mimed a trumpet with a mute in the bell. I whined a freestyle trumpet solo over a scat rhythm, hamming it up and playing out to my imaginary audience. When I dropped my ridiculous charade, I looked at Bucky to see if he was following my lesson.

He was laughing.

Fully, entirely, completely shaking with laughter. I stared at him wide-eyed as he slapped the counter with mirth. An enormous grin spread across my face at the sight of him, even in spite of my embarrassment: this was the first time he had ever laughed in front of me. And I was the one who caused it. Warmth bloomed all over my body and I chuckled along with him.

"You," he choked out as his laughter subsided, "are so. Weird."

"Well, you get the point, anyway," I said a little shyly, turning back to the boombox. "So, yeah, this is Elvis." I pressed play and checked on the lasagna in the oven as Bucky let out a few more snorts of laughter behind me.

We listened to a few songs in silence, him sitting hunched over the counter and me leaning against the fridge, sipping our wine and nodding our heads to the rhythm.

"What do you think?" I asked him eventually, and he smirked at me.

"Not nearly as good as your rendition."

I rolled my eyes and downed my glass, turning to set it on the counter behind me. When I turned back, I jumped; Bucky had rounded the edge of the counter and was standing quite close to me, reaching a hand out.

"Can a guy hope for a dance with his best girl?"

My stomach flipped and I bit my lip, glancing at his outstretched hand, before taking it. He yanked me against him, placing his flesh hand on my waist and intertwining his metal fingers with mine, and he pulled me along into a complicated two-step. I was clumsy but he taught me patiently, spinning me around in little circles in the tiny kitchen's embrace as Elvis crooned. A particularly quick song picked up the pace and we were both laughing a I tried to keep up, Bucky picking me up off the floor and placing me back down every time I missed a step and nearly trod on his feet. I was breathless when the song ended, and a slow, swaying rhythm began to play. My cheeks flushed scarlet as I recognized "Can't Help Falling In Love."

Bucky didn't let go. Instead, he wrapped his arm further around my waist, pulling me flush against his chest and leaning forward so that we were cheek to cheek. I was sure that the super soldier could hear the blood roaring in my ears and my heart skittering as his breath tickled my neck. There was no laughter now. We swayed quietly as the words echoed around us off of the crumbling concrete walls.

 _Wise men say  
Only fools rush in,  
But I can't help  
Falling in love with you..._

I felt tears in my eyes and I squeezed my lids closed, pressing my mouth into his shoulder and bringing the hand on his shoulder up to wrap around him in an embrace. Bucky let go of my hand and touched the back of my neck with his cool, metal palm, making my breath hitch.

 _Like a river flows  
Surely to the sea  
Darling, so it goes,  
Some things are meant to be..._

Was it meant to be, all this time? I was no zealot, that was certain, but I couldn't help but see our meeting as serendipitous. As insane as everything had been that brought us to this moment, I felt sure that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. With that thought burning brightly and clearly in my mind, I pulled back so that our eyes met, barely an inch from each other.

 _Take my hand  
Take my whole life too,  
For I can't help  
Falling in love with you._

Hesitantly, I brought my hand to his cheek, and he closed his eyes as I brushed a strand of hair behind his ears. When he opened them again, they were full of heat and determination, and I caught the quickest breath before he pressed his lips to mine.

I exploded, my nerve endings firing all over my body, feeling every single thing about him: his huge, muscular shoulders flexing beneath my palm, his hair caught in my fingers, his body firm against mine, and his lips, sweet from the wine, moving tenderly against mine. When we broke apart, he huffed out a little laugh, murmuring,

"I can hear your heart thundering, doll. Is that for me?"

"Yes, dummy," I whispered, pulling his neck to crush his lips to mine again. I could feel him smiling into my mouth as he ran his metal hand up and down my spine as we kissed. And kissed. And kissed.

At last, the song ended, breaking the spell. We pulled away, chuckling timidly, looking at the floor and glancing up at each other through our lashes.

"Well," he said, clearing his throat, "that was…." he stopped, sniffing the air. "Is something burning?"

I clapped my hand over my mouth, and pointed at the oven. Bucky raced over and plunged his metal arm inside, pulling out the singed pan of lasagna and depositing it on the stove. Turning back to me, he was laughing again, and my heart soared.

"Oops."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N** : **Ok you guys I was a bit drunk writing this (sorry I saw Hayley Kiyoko tonight and had too much fun!) but I had to crank it out today while I was thinking about it. Fluff fluff and more Bucky fluff! I can PROMISE you that the next chapter is going to be sexy sexy sexy stuff, I already have it planned! Thanks for sticking with me, feeling SO MUCH LOVE from those of you who have been following! ALSO, I was thinking about music as I was writing this bc I was ~in my feelings~ so I made you a lil baby playlist if you want to feel the vibes I was feeling, I will notate the tracks in the story!**

Track 1: Banana Pancakes - Jack Johnson  
Track 2: Sweet Disposition - The Temper Trap  
Track 3: Us - Regina Spektor  
Track 4: Raspberry Beret - Prince

I opened my eyes and saw first the sun filling the room with its effervescent orange glow. Then I focused and my vision was filled with Bucky's sleepy face.

"Good morning, dollface."

My heart was going double-time as I took him in, all half-closed sleepy eyes and brilliant, beautiful smile. His eyes were tired but they held the heat from the night before, and I felt immediately self conscious of my morning breath and bra-lessness.

"I have a surprise for you," I told him, trying to shake off my sleepy fog and pulling away before he could catch me in a kiss. "Just give me a minute."

I shrugged off the covers and stumbled uneasily to the bathroom, trying not to notice his eyes on me as I moved. When inside, I avoided my own gaze in the mirror, afraid of all of the truths I would find reflected there. I washed my face and brushed my teeth, avoiding the emotions I might find in my own eyes if I looked up. When I exited the room, I fixed my stare on the kitchen and refused to look at Bucky as I made my way through the apartment and into the small cooking area. I reached deep into the lower cabinet and pulled out the old drip coffee maker I had scrapped from the secondhand store the previous day.

I set to work filling the pitcher with water and dumping it into the reservoir, measuring out the correct amount of coffee grounds to match. Flicking on the radio component of the boombox to an acoustic station ( _Track 1_ ), I glanced up and saw Bucky slumped, sheets drawn around his rock-hard chest, watching me interestedly from his sleepy post. My face heated at the sight and I turned away, trying to tamp down my arousal at the idea of him waiting in my bed.

The coffee began to brew and I stood there, motionless. I zoned out as I watched the drip drip drip, thinking of the night before. We had scraped away the burned parts of the lasagna and scooped out the good bits, giggling together with our excitement and awkwardness as we chewed. I knew we were both thinking of the kisses we had shared to Elvis's most romantic sonata, and when the quiet meal was done we had curled up together on the couch as we were accustomed to do. I tried to read _Anna Karenina_ but I couldn't focus because I kept feeling him looking at me around the spine of _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_. Frustrated and unable to focus, eventually I tossed my book on the coffee table and rose to go to bed. He had caught my hand as I moved to the bathroom and gave it a tender, warm kiss, saying,

"Good night, doll."

I was jolted from my reverie at the coffee-maker as Bucky rounded the counter and leaned on the fridge in the kitchen next to me.

"Surprise," I said, nodding at the brewing pot. I looked at his face and saw that he was grinning, which made me smile, too. I reached into the cupboard behind me and found two mugs, which I filled from the freshly-brewed pot and distributed between us. I kept my eyes on Bucky as he brought the mug to his lips, closing his eyes in satisfaction as he breathed in the warm, nutty aroma. My head suddenly filled with the image of him in the captain's chair on the boat, reaching gratefully for the cup of coffee I handed him each morning, hunching over it sleepless and stressed. He looked so different now as he took a generous sip, licking his lips and turning his blue gaze sofly upon me in a wordless thanks. Not breaking eye contact, he set his mug on the counter behind us and took me in his arms, pressing my lips with a searing kiss.

"Wow," I breathed as he pulled away, "that was a nicer thank-you than I was expecting. Are there any other appliances you've been pining after?"

Bucky chuckled and took another pull from his mug, closing his eyes in satisfaction as he replied, "A little goes a long way when you spend seventy years with nothing." He said it like he was joking, but I could see the depth of his gratitude as he licked his lips and smiled warmly at me.

"What would you like to do today?"

My stomach did a somersault at the question, realizing we had two whole empty days stretched out before us and I did not have any idea where our relationship stood at the moment.

"I… well," I cleared my throat, "Maria, you know, from the library, she gave me a pamphlet for this… ancient castle." I took another hearty sip of coffee as I avoided Bucky's gaze. "It's sort of a historical monument? You can go and take a tour of it. If… if you don't want to go, I can always go when y—"

"I want to go," Bucky cut me off, looking legitimately enthused. "It sounds cool. It would be great to get out of town for a while." The way he was looking at me was making my skin feel warm and prickly.

I found myself feeling glad that he did not think I was some kind of weird history nerd. "Well, it's about an hour outside of the city–"

"Then it sounds like we'll need some wheels."

( _Track 2_ )

All there was was Bucky, me, and the sky.

At least, that's how it felt as we sped down the empty road. All around me I could hear nothing but the wind _whooshing_ past my helmet as I held onto to his waist, trying to take in every detail of each tree, rock, and field that we passed.

We had gone to a shop full of scooters where Bucky had told me to pick the best-looking one. I chose one that was old, muted mint-green with brown leather detailing like it came out of an old greaser flick, and Bucky had bought it with cash from his week of work. I felt my knickers moisten with lust and excitement as I climbed on the seat behind him and he revved the engine, taking off down the winding road that led out of town.

It was cold. November was in full swing, threatening us with her icy fingers, but the sun kept pushing stubbornly through the clouds as we drove, insisting upon one last warm, sunny day before the winter set in for good. I clung to Bucky's waist as we drove, absorbing the warmth from his body as we sped through the outskirts of Bucharest into the countryside.

We arrived at the castle as the mid-afternoon sun bore it's brightest rays, and we paid our fee and took the literature that led us through our self-guided tour of the grounds. ( _Track 3_ ) Bucky translated the Romanian to me and I absorbed the history of each stone room in the castle, envisioning knights and ladies roaming the halls and holding court in the great room. When we reached the courtyard with a set of dangerous-looking steps, Bucky glanced around, checking that there were no other patrons nearby, before scooping me up in his arms and carrying me up to the rooftop level. He set me down and together we surveyed the view.

All around us was green. For miles on three sides, all that we could see were tall green trees, green fields of flowers, and green, muddy swamps. My breath caught as I took it all in, the beauty that surrounded us for miles and miles. In the distance we could see the city of Bucharest looming like a stray gray tooth in the landscape.

"Being a criminal on the run isn't so bad as I thought it would be," I said quietly, smirking a little at Bucky. He rewarded me with a warm smile in return and took my hand in his.

"I'm very glad you're here with me, Y/N."

( _Track 4_ ) We parked the scooter out front of our apartment and Bucky locked it to a bike rack. From there we walked a block to a small pub on the next street corner and claimed an intimate booth. The pub was lively on this Saturday night, full of patrons presumably from around the neighborhood. As we finished our first round of beers and waited for our dinner to arrive, a line began to queue in the corner of the bar and karaoke started up on the small, raised stage in the rear of the space.

I smiled wickedly at Bucky as I took a heady sip from my beer. "I love karaoke," I admitted to him. "Should I sing a song?" I was mostly joking, but his eyes widened and he nodded enthusiastically.

"Please do. Are you a good singer?"

Giggling with anticipation, I replied, "I'm not the worst, not the best. I think I can hold my own. You really want me to?"

"I do."

He was smiling stupidly and a little bit drunkenly at me, and I recalled the way he had looked the night before when he had laughed at me doing my blues impression. As I took a deep chug of my beer I realized that there was not much I wouldn't do to arouse that reaction in him again. I stood up and raised my chin.

"Fine, since you came to the castle with me I shall sing you a song. But I don't take requests."

With that, I swept off towards the DJ table to peruse the song selection. As it was mostly in Romanian, the English song selection was limited, but I found the perfect song to fit my fancy and I put my name in the queue. There were few entrants, so my turn to sing came up quickly. When the DJ called my name I plucked up my beer from the Formica table and brought it with me to the stage, taking a huge, bracing sip as the into music to "What's Up?" by 4 Non Blondes began to play. Clearing my throat, I began to sing:

 _Twenty-five years and my life is still_

 _Trying to get up that great big hill of hope_

 _For a destination_

A toothy old woman in the back of the room gave an encouraging _WOOOOO_ as I sang, and I hoped that meant I was doing alright. I poured my energy into the song, and when I reached the first "heeeeey yeah yeah," many of the patrons in the bar joined in to sing along, to my great relief. By the time I reached the second verse, more than half of the bar was on their feet, clapping along.

 _And so I wake in the morning_

 _And I step outside_

 _And I take a deep breath and I get real high_

 _And I scream from the top of my lungs_

 _What's going on?_

By now the crowd was waving their arms and I was hamming it up, not sure if I was singing well or if I was just giving good energy, but the room joined in with my next "heeeeeey yeah yeah" and I gave it my all. I found Bucky's face in the crowd as I performed the rest of the song and he was beaming up at me, standing up and cupping his hands around his mouth, calling encouragements. When the song ended I brought the house down, and I received a standing ovation from all twenty-five patrons in the pub. I took an embarrassed bow and snaked back through the tables to our booth, unable to suppress my laughter at my own candor. Bucky, however, was grinning as widely as if he had won the Super Bowl, and scooped me into his arms as soon as I neared the table.

"That was amazing!" He praised as I collapsed in his arms in a fit of nervous laughter. "That took balls! I could never do that!"

"It was a lot of fun," I admitted, chugging the last few sips of my beer and slamming it down on the table, "But unless you're going to get up and sing a song, I think I'm about ready to go home, Oh Husband of Mine."

Bucky beamed at me and pulled me in for a kiss in front of everyone in the pub, making me flush with heat.

"So home we shall go, my darling wife."


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N** : a warning to the wise, this chapter is pretty much _pure Bucky Barnes smut_ so please proceed with caution. This is my first time writing a sex scene so I hope you guys like it! I kept it short for now but there will be more to come… Feedback is appreciated!

Also, did you guys like the playlist on the last chapter? Should I keep doing that or is it stupid? Let me know what you think! Thank you to those sweet baby angels who have been leaving nice reviews ily!

"Damn it, when did this start?"

Bucky and I hovered in the doorway of the pub, gaping at the dense sheets of rain pouring ceaselessly down.

"Unless you have a vibranium umbrella hidden somewhere as well, it looks like we're getting a shower on the way home," I said with a laugh and slipped my hand in his, bracing to make the run up the street. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," he grumbled and took off, yanking me nearly off my feet in his haste. The crooked street was already full of water, potholes creating secret pools that splashed up all over our jeans and soaked our shoes completely through as we stumbled along. I squealed and laughed as I nearly fell to my knees in a particularly deep puddle, Bucky rolling his eyes at my clumsiness and pulling me along like a drowning rag doll. By the time we finally reached the front door of the building and dragged ourselves up to number 13, we were both completely soaked through to the bone and shivering from the night's cold. Inside, Bucky scurried over to turn on the small space heater near the bed and flick on the lamp as I locked the door.

I rolled my sopping sweater over my head as I turned to face the room and felt my t-shirt underneath clinging wetly to my chest. I was about to head into the bathroom to hang the sweater when I was stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of Bucky.

He was standing in the middle of the room, motionless, plainly roving his eyes over my soaked chest and I felt my mouth drop open as I watched him bite his lower lip. When he raised his eyes to mine, they were dark and scorching, and he didn't look away as he unzipped the hoodie he was wearing and slowly pulled it away from his chest and dropped it to the floor. Whatever jokes I had been ready to quip about how we should have bought a real car with a roof died in my throat with a heavy, thirsty swallow.

We stood staring for a few beats of silence save for the pounding rain and my pounding heartbeat. Slowly, I dropped the sweater and lifted my fingertips to the hem of my t-shirt. I saw Bucky's eyes watching my hands as I peeled the hem up, exposing the soft flesh on my torso and then my plain black bra. Dropping the t-shirt on top of the sweater, I dropped my arms and waited expectantly to see if he would take his turn in our new, bizarre game. After a moment he mimicked me, slowly dragging his shirt up over a chiseled set of abs and smooth, defined chest. When he pulled it over his head, I could see the site where his metal arm joined his huge, sloping shoulders. It made me shiver, but not in fear.

Bucky took the first step, creeping across the concrete floor towards me, still scorching me with his unflinching gaze. He stopped a foot away from me, squaring off. What happened next was up to me. I took a deep breath, and closed the distance between us.

All of the tension, hesitation, and confusion built up between us since the moment we met snapped in that instant. He filled my mouth with his kiss, clutching wet hands to wet skin, his long hair sprinkling icy droplets across my back. I roamed my hands across the expanse of his perfect chest, finally feeling all that I had been imagining when I held him in my arms at night, greedily lapping up every inch of him I could reach. His tongue pushed between my lips and I met it with my own, beginning a flirtatious dance in our mouths that elicited an involuntary moan from me that made him pull me closer. He pawed at my chest, cupping my breasts over my bra, and then wrapping his arms around my back and dexterously opening the clasp, freeing me. I flung off the bra and threw my arms around him again, pressing my full nakedness against his warm chest.

The contact made us both groan with pleasure. Bucky ran his hands down my back and grabbed a handful of my ass; I could feel his arousal through his jeans and I pressed my crotch against it, pulling away from his lips to kiss all over his neck. His breath was hot in my ear as I licked rainwater from the stubble of his jaw line and sunk my teeth into the spot just under his ear, sucking the tender fruit of his flesh. He hissed in a breath and grabbed harder at my backside with his metal hand, bringing up his other hand to tangle in my wet hair and pressing erratic kisses to my cheek. Our lips made our way back home and continued their dance, trading tongues and nips and hot breath.

Suddenly I was lifted off the ground and I gasped in surprise, but Bucky didn't break the stride of his kiss as I felt him carry me a few steps and set my butt down on the kitchen counter. He pushed in between my legs and wrapped his arms around my waist again, pulling away from my kiss and wrapping his lips around one of my nipples first, and then the other. Panting with pleasure, I leaned my head back and thrust my chest out like an offering which he took hungrily. His hands massaged my breasts as his mouth licked and sucked at the soft skin. A jolt shot down my spine as he pinched a nipple between the cold of his metal fingers, the sensation so intense that I could feel the pulse of my own arousal between my legs. Bucky slowed his movements until he was still, pressing the palm his flesh hand flat against my chest, over my thundering heart.

When he spoke, his voice was deep and husky, and I felt myself flooding at the sound of it: "Is that for me, doll?"

"Yes," I breathed and tried to lean forward to kiss him, but he pressed on my chest gently until I was laying flat on my back. Taking his time, he pulled off one of my boots and then the other, letting them drop to the ground each with a wet _plop_. Carefully he undid the button of my jeans, slid down the zipper, hooked his fingers through the belt loops, and peeled them off my body. When they too hit the ground, he withdrew from between my legs and stood next to me, trailing his fingers along my collarbone and making me shiver. He leaned down to kiss me as he continued his sweet caresses, finding stray water droplets on my skin and dragging them with him on his wayward trail down, down, down…

I cried out as his fingers gently brushed the fabric between my legs, drawing feather light circles over my most sensitive spot. I snapped my eyes up to his face with fascination, needing to watch him, to see his reactions to my arousal at his touch. His blue eyes were dark storms, each its own typhoon of lust and I flooded, drowning in them. His fingers pushed around the fabric and he slipped inside, making me whimper and flood some more as he coated himself in the slickness.

"Is that for me, too?"

I was too breathless to respond now, which made him smile devilishly. He rubbed his wet fingers over my clit with agonizing slowness and a shuddering breath wracked my body as I clutched the edge of the counter, bringing my foot up onto the ledge to spread myself for him. He returned to my entrance, and I cried his name as he pushed two fingers deep inside. He angled his wrist so that he was hitting _that spot_ as he pumped in and out, and I panted encouraging expletives as he increased the pace and pressure. As I was reaching the edge, he paused, raising his other hand—the metal one—to his mouth and licked the tip of his middle finger sensually. Then he smiled even more wickedly and asked me,

"Does it make you nervous?"

My eyes widened at the memory he recalled of the first time he had asked me the question, the first morning on the boat together. I felt my walls clench around his fingers with lust as he picked up his pace again.

"No. I _want_ it."

He grinned and I grinned back, and he obliged, lowering the metal and pressing an ice-cold finger to my clitoris. The intensity of the temperature change paired with his slick fingers inside me sent me hurtling over the edge of sanity, and I exploded. The shrapnel of my mind ricocheted off the ceilings and walls for infinity and all I could see was deep, deep ocean. I floated in the calm depths, weightless, enjoying the echoing silence, until finally I broke the surface and swam home to shore.


	15. Chapter 15

When I came to, I found that Bucky had pulled be back to a seated position and returned to stand between my legs, supporting me as I sagged against him. I giggled as he sprinkled feather-light kisses across my chest, and he pulled back to meet my eyes, smirking.

"Does that tickle?" he teased in his husky voice, and I saw that his eyes were even more on fire than they had been before, the sight arousing my desire all over again. His eyes darted to my chest and I realized he must have been able to hear my heart speed up again, and I wished I could hear his beating, too. A droplet of water ran down my spine making me shiver with cold, and Bucky wrapped his arms around me quickly, trapping my goosebumped arms in his body heat.

"Let's get under the covers," I whispered in his ear, and was pleased to see the hairs on the back of his neck stand up before he plucked me up off the counter and carried me to the bed. He set me down on the edge, but I didn't crawl under the blanket: instead, I scrambled to my knees so that my face was level with Bucky's smooth chest. I placed my fingertips on his skin and caressed across his torso as I leaned forward and began kissing. My head was suddenly swimming with the heady desire to pleasure him, to repay him for the perfect way he had just pleased me, to make him my king. I worshipped every part of him I could reach from my position, kissing and licking and touching across the muscular landscape of his body as he breathed deeply and ran his fingers through my hair.

At length, I lowered my head until I was just above his crotch, and began to lick a torturously slow stripe along his waistband, eliciting a groan that I could feel reverberating in his gut. I drew myself up and craned my neck for him to kiss me, which he did while I teased my fingers in the elastic of his boxer briefs and then clumsily undid his jeans. As I began to pull them down, I bent my head back down too, licking and nipping at his hip bones. Up close I could see fair hairs swirling around his belly button and forging a happy trail down into his boxers, and the sight made me wet with wanting to see where the trail ended.

Quickly I shifted so that I was seated on the edge of the bed normally with my legs spread open, giving him a view of my arousal as I ran my hand up and down the hard bulge in his boxer briefs. I felt my mouth drop open as I realized how _big_ it was, and I bit down on my lower lip as I looked up to meet his eyes, wanting to see how he was reacting to my teasing. I was not disappointed. Bucky was gazing down on me slack-jawed and breathing heavily, mesmerized by my caressing hand and my heaving chest as if he were under a spell. It made me feel powerful to hold him, literally, in the palm of my hand–this big, strong man that had been protecting me all these weeks, succumbed in an instant to my touch. Right now, I was in control.

He must have seen the flame ignite in my eyes because he grabbed my hair roughly and let out a desperate moan; it was time for me to end his agony. I hooked my fingers in the waistband of the boxer briefs and dragged them down to his ankles, my breath catching as I sat back up and saw his enormous cock spring loose.

I took it eagerly in both of my hands, caressing it gently at first, feeling the amazingly smooth skin beneath my fingertips and enjoying the moans coming from Bucky's throat. I looked up at him and waited until he focused his eyes on mine, and I did not look away as I positioned the head of his cock at my mouth and lavished the tip with one slow, sensual lick.

"Oh, _fuck_ ," he gasped out, reaching out with his free hand to steady himself on my shoulder, and I couldn't help but smile devilishly up at him, not breaking the scorching eye contact.

"Is this what you want?" I asked sweetly, giving the tip another slobbering lick. I was having so much fun with my teasing that the sheet beneath me was growing damp with my excitement.

"Yes, doll, _please_ , yes," he rasped, making me grin, and then I took mercy on him. Wrapping my lips around the tip, I slowly leaned forward and took as much of the length as I could inside my mouth until it tickled the gag reflex in the back of my throat. Slowly, I pulled it back out again, leaving behind as much warm saliva as I could along the length until it popped out and Bucky let out a low moan of pleasure. I held the base of his cock with my dominant hand as I began a bobbing rhythm, matching my hand with my mouth's pace as it slicked with my spit. Bucky held roughly to my hair and pushed my head gently as I worked him, keeping eye contact for as long as he could until he was lost to the pleasure and threw his head back, mouth open and gasping. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, the sight of him in ecstasy from my tongue, my hands, and I pushed him deeper into my mouth, my need to please him overriding my gag reflex in the heat of the moment.

Suddenly his head snapped down and he pulled my head back so that he slipped out of my mouth. In the next instant I was flat on my back and he his hands grasped my hips, lifting me in the air and sloppily kissing my stomach as he gasped,

"I need to feel you, to be inside of you."

"I want you inside of me," I purred huskily, knowing I was soaking wet from his words and the way he manhandled me to the position that he wanted me in. With a low growl I felt him press his tip to my opening, and he looked quickly up at me to make sure I was ready. I was beyond ready, and I gave him a lusty smile.

He slammed into me and we cried out together, me clutching at the sheets around me, my eyes fluttering. It might have been painful had he not stretched me with his fingers already, and all I felt was pure bliss. He withdrew and slammed in again, getting used to the sensation of my tightness, and I heard him cursing from the shock of the pleasure. The iron springs of the bed rattled and squeaked loudly as he sped up his pace, and I was sure that the headboard would be leaving dents in the wall from the force of his weight crashing into me over and over.

"Yes, baby," I mewled breathlessly as he brought his metal hand around to rub cool circles on my clit as he fucked, "just like that, don't stop!"

"I'm gonna come," he choked out, leaning over me and finding my eyes again, "come with me doll, I wanna feel you come with me!"

At his urging I felt my gut clenching with the orgasm, bigger and even more soul-shaking than the first had been, and my arms cast about helplessly as it built.

"Yes," he growled, " _yes, fuck_!"

We spilled over the cliff together, screaming triumphantly, hips bucking into each other, fingers curling. When I plunged into the deep water this time, he was there with me, filling me with his warmth and for one blissful moment, we were one. I felt his lips brush mine and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pulling him to my chest, wanting to float with him forever.

When we came to, he carefully withdrew from me and I gasped at the feeling of emptiness in his absence. He quickly maneuvered me so that I was curled up on his chest, both of us squeezed together in the small bed, and drew the sheets up around our nakedness. I propped my chin up and looked at him: he looked sleepy now, the heated look in his eyes had faded and he was looking at me tenderly with a small smile on his lips.

"Hi," I said, feeling a little shy now in the aftermath. He grinned.

"Hi, beautiful. Are you okay?"

"I'm incredible," I said, and I meant it. My body felt like stretched elastic that had been released from it's tenuous hold, limbs humming and relaxed.

"Yes, you are," he leaned forward to kiss me and I flushed to think of how bold I had been with him just minutes ago. "That was… well, let me just say, for the first time in oh, seventy years…"

My eyes widened; I hadn't even considered that he would not have had sex with anyone since the 1940's. Quickly I mentally reviewed my performance, glad that I didn't think to feel pressured to be his "first" during the act. Timidly, I asked, "Was it worth the wait?"

"Oh, dollface," and his eyes rolled back in his head in an exaggeration of pleasure, making me giggle, "you killed me." He pulled me closer so that we were nose to nose, kissing me again, this time with some heat that, incredibly, made me wet again. "I'm a little out of practice though. Maybe you can give me another try to get it right?"

"I have no complaints," I breathed as he traced light kisses along my jaw, making me lose my train of thought.

Suddenly he pulled me onto his lap so that I was straddling him, and I felt him growing hard beneath my pelvis.

"I'm gonna need a more glowing review than that."


	16. Chapter 16

When I opened my eyes the next morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find that, for the first time, Bucky was still snoozing softly. I watched him for a long while to memorize every inch of his face, for once at peace in the hazy morning light, and his long auburn hair tousled across the pillow. I counted the birth marks that dotted his chest and smiled at the few purple bruises I had left behind on his neck with my mouth the night before like a teenager in puppy love. Honestly, I _felt_ like a teenager in puppy love as I stretched my arms and legs, feeling a delicious soreness in my thighs from the evening's workout.

Carefully I extracted myself from Bucky's tangled limbs and plucked up a t-shirt and a pair of underwear on my way into the bathroom. I was careful to choose one of the sexy, lacy pairs of panties that I was at first so annoyed to have packed from my apartment in Philly. Now, I sent up a prayer of thanks to the Patron Saint of Semi-Annual Sale at Victoria's Secret.

As I washed my hands and face I looked at my own reflection, finally feeling ready to face the truth of what I would see there. My eyes were bright as stars, my mussed hair shiny and healthy, my skin glowing except for the love bites trailing down my own throat into the neck of the t-shirt that I now realized was Bucky's. Leaning over the sink and meeting my own stare, I leveled with myself: after last night, there was no denying the feelings that had been skittering around my brain for weeks. The truth was, I was falling in love with Bucky Barnes. Unfortunately, Bucky Barnes was also The Winter Soldier. Which meant I was in deep, deep shit.

I could not bring myself to be worried though as I emerged from the bathroom and my gaze fell once again on Bucky's sleeping form. _So be it_ , I thought to myself as I padded quietly to the kitchen to brew the coffee. _If Bucky Barnes is to be my downfall, I will gladly go down in flames._

I had been curled up on the couch with my coffee for a half-hour before I heard the bed springs creaking and Bucky's groan as he stretched himself awake. He caught me watching as his naked form rose from the bed, and he wiggled his eyebrows.

"Like what you see?" he teased.

"Yes," I admitted, biting my lip, "I do, actually."

He chuckled as he pulled on a pair of boxers and went to pour himself a cup of coffee before joining me on the couch.

"I'm glad you got some sleep," I told him as he lifted my legs to slip underneath them and placed them back on his lap when he settled into the cushions.

"Me, too. I guess you wore me out last night," he said, winking and tickling the sensitive skin behind my knee and making me squeal.

"You're truly a devil, James Barnes," I fake-chastised him as he snatched my coffee mug out of my hand and deposited it hastily onto the table before pulling me upright onto his lap.

"But you like it, don't you, bad girl?"

He caught me in a searing kiss that tasted like coffee as he ran his hands over my backside, slipping his fingers inside the waistband of my panties and running them along my belly to tickle me.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" he asked playfully, fingering the purple lace around my thighs and pulling back to ogle me. Giggling, I tugged up the hem of the t-shirt to give him a better look, but my laughter died when he froze, seemingly in terror.

"What?!" I asked in alarm, looking down at myself, as my face heated with whatever unknown shame I was about to discover.

"I hurt you," he whispered. "Look."

Indeed, on each of my hips bloomed a huge bruise in the shape of a large hand. The one on the left side was not too dark, mostly greenish and yellow, but the one on the right, which would have been made by Bucky's metal hand, was black and blue. I winced as I looked at it, not because it was painful, but because it pained Bucky to see it.

"You didn't hurt me," I said quickly, pulling down the shirt and grabbing his shoulders. "It's nothing, I'm completely fine. I bruise easily." A lie, but a necessary one. "Honestly, Buck, I didn't even notice until right now." That was true. In the moment of passion there had been no pain, only pleasure.

But Bucky's eyes were already clouding over and I clambored at him, desperate to keep him from retreating into himself. "I'm so sorry, Y/N. I… I guess I don't know my own strength, especially with… this. This monstrosity." He curled his vibranium hand into a fist, bowing his head.

"No!" I cried a little hysterically, feeling a lump in my throat that I tried to swallow. Crying would only make him feel worse. "No, Bucky, you didn't hurt me! Don't you apologize to me. Don't you _dare_ apologize for anything about last night." I threw my arms around his shoulders and buried kisses in his neck. He did not move, so I grabbed his metal arm in both my hands and kissed the clenched fist, trying to meet his eyes, pleading.

"I'm a monster," he whispered, looking down, "and I always will be."

"Stop that," I snapped sharply, dropping his fist and roughly grabbing his chin, forcing him to look up at me. In his eyes I saw an ocean of pain, but his eyebrows shot up in surprise at my forcefulness. "You're not a monster. You're a good person, you always take care of me, you could never hurt me, you're my–" I cut off, casting around for the right word. What was he to me?

"You're my _husband_ , dammit, and I care about you, you idiot. A lot." _And I'm in love with you_. But I didn't say that.

He huffed out a laugh and finally I felt his arms snake around my waist.

"I care about you a lot, too, doll. I'm…" he frowned, looking away from me, "I'm afraid of what I'm capable of. I'm so _dangerous_ , and I have no idea what they did to my head, I'm terrified that I could kill you at any second…"

"But you won't," I assured him softly, stroking his cheek.

"How do you know?" he met my eyes again, and I saw that his were misty, a mixture of sadness and gratitude. I suddenly, deeply understood how much my trust meant to him.

"Because," I told him, smiling warmly, "you're not the Winter Soldier. You're not what they put inside your head. You are so much more than that. And," I swallowed, my cheeks heating as I continued, "we didn't come all this way for that to be how this ends. Something brought us together, to help each other. I know it."

Bucky's expression softened to something like comfort as he pulled me against him and kissed me tenderly.

"You've done more than help me, Y/N. You've saved me."

The coffee cups sat cold and abandoned as we decided to go back to bed for the rest of the day.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: HELLOOOO I am back on my bullshit! Sorry for the lengthy hiatus, the last few weeks have been very insane (I got ENGAGED in real life, wtf) but I am here, I'm queer, I'm ready to give you all of the sexy fluffy angsty Bucky you deserve. I've been having some writer's block on what's next but I think I'm on back on track now. Also I have been trying to figure out where I'm going to end this fic, I'm thinking potentially pre-Infinity War because like, it's just too much for my emotions to get into that. And then maybe I'll come back to it after Avengers 4 if it applies? Idk, what do you guys think? Anyways, here is another fluffity-fluff chapter for now, hopefully going to be able to crank out a few more this weekend. :) Hope you enjoy! Thank you so much for all of the sweet reviews that were left in my absence that encouraged me to get back** **to it and place interact with me on tumblr if you have suggestions!**

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"Ho, ho, ho," Bucky's tired voice in the doorway made me whirl around from the stove with a smile.

"Who are you callin' a hoe?" I teased him as he dumped an arm full of bags on the counter and reached out to embrace me. After a lingering kiss I handed him the glass of champagne I had poured in anticipation of his arrival. "Merry Christmas, Sergeant."

"Merry Christmas, Mrs. Barnes," he said, clinking his glass to mine, and I hoped he was not paying attention to the way the phrase _Mrs. Barnes_ made my heart skip to double-time as he took a large sip. He looked exhausted.

"I can't believe you had to work on Christmas Eve," I said, furrowing my eyebrows. He shrugged.

"Busiest day of the year for shipping things. And the time-and-a-half won't hurt."

I snorted at this. The rent on the apartment proved to be a drop in the bucket compared to Bucky's income from the docks, and other than groceries and the occasional thrifted item, we were hardly spending a cent. Most of our free time these days was spent reading, listening to music, or–if we're being honest–having sex.

"Hey," he mock-pouted, "how else was I gonna get a nice Christmas gift for my best girl?" He pulled a small, gift-wrapped box out of his coat pocket and held it up teasingly, and my eyes widened. Smiling wickedly, he turned to the sitting area where we had erected a small, Charlie Brown-esque Christmas tree from the secondhand store on the coffee table. He placed the small box under the tree, stopping when he saw my small gift to him that was already nestled there. He turned back to me slowly.

"I don't… I don't think I've gotten a gift in seventy years," Bucky admitted with a lopsided smile, and I felt my heart pang with sadness for him once again.

I cleared my throat. "Well, no pressure, then," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes to mask their wetness and turning back to the stove. A moment later I felt his arms around my waist as he pressed a breathy kiss to the back of my neck that made me shiver.

"I would love anything that came from you," he whispered in my ear, and my stomach did a little somersault. He gave my backside a squeeze before pulling away to go and take a shower. I hoped he was right.

We had our Christmas dinner and drank our champagne, reminiscing about holidays past and swapping funny stories. I was heartened to see that Bucky seemed to be regaining his old memories more rapidly, and that he was able to recall details such as the hideous house coat his grandmother used to wear when his family would open presents. After a considerable amount of chatting there was also a considerable amount of smooching which, naturally, carried us late into the evening. When we resurfaced, Bucky squinted at the clock, his face lighting up with a huge smile.

"It's 12:15–officially Christmas!" Reaching out, he plucked up the two gifts from under the tree and handed mine to me, giving his own an experimental little shake while he grinned goofily. His joy was infectious and it made me feel warm and content, all snuggled up with him on the couch in our tiny, ramshackle apartment. Our own little hideaway.

"You first," I told him, because I knew that he couldn't wait much longer, and he began to carefully tear away the red and green printed paper. I held my breath, feeling suddenly nervous and squeezing my hands together in my lap as he lifted the lid of the palm-size cardboard box. He removed the leather bracelet from inside, holding it up in the dim light to examine the intricate braiding woven around an ivory bead carved into the shape of a wolf's head.

"It made me think of you when I saw it," I blurted quickly, "Because you're… strong, and wild, and… beautiful. And always protect me fiercely." I felt lame saying it, but when when Bucky looked up at me, his eyes were misted over and I realized that I had, somehow, nailed it.

He seemed to be struggling for words. He held the bracelet out to me and offered his flesh wrist for me to fasten it onto, blinking rapidly. When it was securely in place, he clutched my hands and pressed them to his lips.

"Thank you," he murmured, his voice gravelly, "It means so much to me. I will cherish it always." I smiled and leaned in to kiss him, feeling rather pleased with myself, before feeling butterflies in my stomach all over again in anticipation of opening my own gift. I settled back against the couch and fingered the edges of the gold paper, my heart skittering as I recognized the felt texture of a jewelry box underneath. Tossing the paper aside, I took in a breath before lifting the lid. Inside was a delicate gold ring with a crudely cut black onyx stone in the middle flanked by two smaller murky white quartz on either side.

"It's not–you don't have to wear it on your ring finger," now Bucky was the one blurting and rambling. "I just thought it was so unique and interesting, like you, and also kinda fucked up, like me, and that if you wanted to, you could wear it to… to always think of me. Or as your fake wedding ring. Or whatever you want. Or you don't have to wear it." I looked up at him with my eyes swimming with tears: he was nervously running his hand through his hair, frowning and seeming to second guess his choice.

"Of course I'll wear it," I choked out, my voice thick with emotion as I slid the ring onto my left ring finger. "It's so beautiful. Thank you, Buck. I love… it." I chickened out of saying 'you' as I turned to look at him. We smiled warmly at each other with mutual relief at the success of our gifts and he scooped me up in his arms again in a big hug. Looking at my hand over his shoulder, I admired the way the ring glinted in its position of honor and felt my face heating at the mental image of walking down the aisle toward Bucky on a _real_ wedding day. I squeezed my eyes shut and popped that bubble; in reality, the way things stood, that could never happen. But for now, this was enough.

We held each other quietly for a long while, listening to the Christmas music tinkling through the boombox speakers and admiring the winking lights on the scrawny little tree. Never in my life could I have imagined that this would be how I was spending the holidays, but once again I felt that sense of _rightness_. Bucky seemed to read my thoughts.

"This is perfect," he whispered, kissing my cheek and running his fingers through my hair. I smiled and nuzzled against his chest, breathing in his warm scent and sighing contentedly.

Yes. Yes, it was.


	18. Chapter 18

January came and went, bringing flurries of fluffy snow that built up on the window sill and dragged in through the front door clinging to boots and scarves. February was worse: icy storms crept in during the nighttime, freezing the pipes and making the sidewalks treacherous to walk upon. Sometimes the howling wind outside would prompt Bucky's nightmares, reminding him of the frozen landscape in Siberia where he had been held prisoner as the Winter Soldier, and he would wake shivering and sobbing in the night. These nights were terrible, but for the most part still we trudged on with our routine.

As March began to thaw and we could feel our fingers again, I wondered to myself how much longer we would be keeping this up. I had nearly finished my thesis by now, having been hard at work on it non-stop for months, and I was starting to worry what shape my life was going to take once I completed it and had nothing else to do. At the beginning of all of this, I never imagined we would be able to stay hidden for this long, although what I _was_ expecting, I do not know. This plan was pretty half-baked. And now it was incredibly complicated, thanks to the fact that I had fallen in love with my test subject. So how much longer could I play house before reality was to set in?

The answer came in the first week of April. I was at the laundromat alone folding a load of towels while another load spun in the dryer, glancing every few moments up at the boxy old television mounted in the corner of the room that was flashing the news. My eyes widened and I nearly dropped the washcloth I was holding as the headline scrolled by: BOMBING AT THE VIENNA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE DURING THE SIGNING OF THE SOKOVIA ACCORDS.

"Hey, can you turn the volume up?" I asked the shop owner in Romanian. I was getting better at the language, but fortunately the news broadcast was in English.

" _More than seventy people have been injured. At least twelve are dead, including Wakanda's King T'Chaka. Officials have released a video of a suspect who they have identified as James Buchanan Barnes, also known as the Winter Soldier."_

To say my mouth went dry as a bone would be an understatement. It felt more like the floor had opened up and the pit of the earth had swallowed me whole. On the screen showed an enhanced image from security footage of Bucky– _my_ Bucky– with a hood drawn up walking away from the scene of the crime. _But it's impossible! He's been here all this time! There's no way he could have gone to Vienna for the day… and he would never do that! …Would he?_ Fear and panic were surging through me as my brain jumped from thought to thought, confused and overwhelmed. I noticed that the shop owner was looking at me curiously, and I realized she was likely wondering if my "husband" that I sometimes do laundry with is the same man she had just seen on the tv.

 _Stay. Calm._ Hastily I tossed the remainder of the towels in a pile and scurried over to the dryer to check the tumbling load. I paced in front of it, checking my watch and watching the tv out of the corner of my eye for developments on the story until it finally beeped. I scooped the clothes haphazardly into the bag still damp and scorching hot, giving the shopkeeper a quick wave as I scuttled into the street and hurried toward the apartment. I could have kicked myself then for not insisting that Bucky and I get burner phones in case of an emergency. We had grown too complacent in our quiet life to imagine what would happen if shit hit the fan.

 _Unless he didn't want me to be able to contact him, because he was off committing crimes all this time._ The thought sprung unbidden to my mind and I cursed, angry at myself for thinking so lowly of him but unable to shake it away. Was it possible he was betraying me all along? I didn't want to believe it, but my analytical mind could not help but recognize that I had never once seen the docks where he said that he worked. And that he was, after all, The Winter Soldier.

Still, I reasoned, trying to blink away the tears that had risen to my eyes, there was no way in hell that he could have gone to Vienna and back without my knowing it. Time wise, it was just completely impossible. Even so, my hands shook violently as I maneuvered the key into the lock of number 13 and pushed the door open.

Bucky's head whipped up from where he was crouching next to the dresser, and a strangled cry of relief tore from my throat as I realized that he was here. Here, with me, like he had always been, and not in Vienna. Not on the lam from committing a horrible terrorist attack. Hating myself for doubting him, doubting _us_ , I dropped the laundry and ran to him, throwing my arms around him and allowing a few tears to fall.

"What the fuck is going on?!" I hissed at him, pulling away and getting a look at the fear in his eyes.

"I don't know," he said, frantically running a hand through his long hair, "someone's trying to frame me for this." He had evidently heard the news at work and come straight home.

"They have a photo of you," my voice was high and panicky. "Everyone around here knows what you look like. They'll come for us!"

Bucky did not disagree. "Which is why we need to pack a bag and get out of here, as quickly as we can. As soon as a tip comes in, they'll be all over us. They might already be. The photo was in this morning's papers." He grasped my shoulders firmly and looked pleadingly into my eyes. "Pull it together and let's go."

I did as I was told, moving numbly around the apartment to gather my papers and some clothes, trying to ignore the lump in my throat as I passed around the room. Library books that would never be returned to Maria. The boombox that we would no longer dance to. The noisy bed in which we would never make love again. _Pull it together,_ I tried to tell myself, taking a bracing look at the onyx ring on my left hand. _We still have what's most important: each other._ Bucky pulled on a black baseball cap and a jacket over my favorite red henley shirt, giving me a comforting smile before nodding to the top of the refrigerator. The knife.

I had just snatched it up and tucked it safely into my back pocket when the door suddenly busted open with a loud _bang_! I dropped back in surprise, cowering behind the kitchen island.

Steve Rogers was filling the doorway of number 13 with his huge, muscular frame. Fully clothed in his Captain America gear, shield on his back, he took a cautious step into the room and eyed me curiously before turning to Bucky, who had come up to stretch his metal arm protectively out in front of me.

After a beat of silence, Rogers asked Bucky, "Do you know me?"

"You're Steve. I read about you in a museum." I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, wondering what game he was trying to play. He had remembered Steve since I had met him.

"I know you're nervous," Rogers replied, "and you have plenty of reason to be. But you're lying." His eyes flicked over to me again, obviously confused by my part in this.

"I wasn't in Vienna. I don't do that anymore." Bucky's voice was quiet and curt. I took a step closer to him, standing by my man. I would have fought anyone, including Captain America, to prove his innocence.

"Well, the people who think you did are coming here now, and they're not planning on taking you alive," the Captain said gravely, taking a step towards us. Bucky gently pushed me behind him and said slowly,

"That's smart. Good strategy." He glanced at me over his shoulder and gave me a little nod. Pulling my backpack on, I reached behind me and fingered hilt of the knife in my sweaty palm, wishing I knew how in the hell to use it. Bucky, meanwhile, was tugging off his gloves and checking his own pockets.

"This doesn't have to end in a fight, Buck," Rogers urged, taking another step forward. Bucky sighed.

"It always ends in a fight." Reaching down, he picked up his pack off the floor and shoved it into my shaking hands. He looked hard into my eyes, and I nodded with understanding. He was going to have to fight our way out of this. I was going to have to run.

"You pulled me from the river!" Rogers was growing impatient and urgent. "Why?"

"I don't know," Bucky said without looking at him. His eyes were still on me, and he reached out to brush away a stray tear that had fallen down my cheek with his flesh hand. I ghosted a kiss to the ivory wolf bead on his leather bracelet before we both turned back to face Steve Rogers, hand in hand.

"Yes, you do." The eye contact between the two Howling Commandos was sad and meaningful for a few short seconds before the first grenade broke through the window, and all at once, our little world fell apart.


	19. Chapter 19

Everything that happened next was a nightmarish blur of gunshots and excruciating punches. I watched the vintage bar stools get broken over men's heads, the lamp shatter, the boombox torn from the wall and used as a battering ram. Bucky fought for his own life and mine as he shoved us out of number 13 and into the stairwell, using his metal arm as both shield and sword as we tumbled down the steps. Steve Rogers seemed to be both fighting the police and saving them when Bucky took too hard of a hit that nearly sent them toppling over the railing.

"GO!" Bucky screamed at me as he held off some cops and I made it down a few more sets of stairs. "I'll catch up, go!"

Having no choice but to heed his command, as I had no super strength of my own, I ducked and dodged my way down to the ground floor and busted through the front doors into the street, running blindly with tears streaming from my eyes. I had no clue where to go. Glass shattered overhead and I looked up to see Bucky diving out a window onto the neighboring roof and running full speed ahead, before being overtaken by a mysterious, unknown man in a black bodysuit. Panic and shock threatened to overwhelm me but I tried to focus, tearing my horrified gaze away from the fight and flinging myself toward the bike rack where our moped was chained up. I could scarcely turn the combination lock with my quaking hands but somehow managed to pry the bike loose and fumble the key into the ignition. No time for helmets now. I stepped on the gas and followed alongside Bucky's rooftop route on the street.

I reached a busy intersection and maneuvered wildly and dangerously though cars, foot still planted hard on the gas pedal. Frantically I scanned the horizon and finally saw Bucky drop to the ground from the roof near the mouth of the tunnel leading into the heart of the city.

"BUCKY!" I screamed at the top of my lungs and he spun towards the sound of my voice. Frantically I sped the bike towards where he stood and it screeched to a halt, teetering dangerously close to toppling me over. Without a word I scooted back so that he could take the wheel and he swung his leg over, revving the engine as I clutched onto his back, both of our bags still hanging miraculously off my arms. I ducked my head behind him as he sped off into the tunnel, afraid to look up and see the dangerous path we were cutting through the afternoon traffic. The whistling wind, roaring engine, and blaring sirens were making my ears ring painfully. To my right I could see the man in the black suit leaping between the roofs of cars towards us.

"Who the fuck is that?!" I shouted over the din at Bucky.

"I don't know, but he really, _really_ wants to kill me," he called back. "Hang on tight, doll!"

As if I wasn't already squeezing his torso for dear life. He spurred the moped on faster and cut a crazy figure-eight through the cars that required me to bite down a scream of terror. There was light just ahead: the other side of the tunnel was close.

But the moped was not built for high speed chase. Or vibranium claws.

Without warning, the roof over the opening of the tunnel began to crumble into a cloud of dust, and I heard Bucky roar in frustration as he barely managed to dodge chunks of concrete falling from the ceiling. Then, suddenly, we careened out of control, and I was sure in that moment that I was about to die. Somehow, Bucky flung himself around and tucked me into his chest, cradling my head with his vibranium arm as we hit the ground with a sickening thud.

Fear, panic, adrenaline, shock: they all hit me as hard as the pavement and I almost did not believe it when I came to and realized that I was alive and wrapped in Bucky's safe embrace. The dust around us was beginning to clear, but my brain was closing up shop.

"I'm so sorry, Y/N. I'm so sorry." his voice was hoarse as he pecked my forehead with dry lips and I struggled to comprehend what was going on as the edges around my vision began to blur and darken.

"Don't… don't you… apologize…"

"Get on your knees and put your hands over your head! Now!"

I felt rough hands pulling me away from Bucky, away from safe, away from home. I tried to cry out, kick out, reach out for him, but I was falling. My vision tunnelled and the last thing I saw before I blacked out was Bucky, face down in the road, a cop's knee in his back and a huge, glistening gun to his head.

"But who is she?"

"Apparently, she's a student. She was reported missing back in September in Philadelphia."

"Philadelphia?! But why was she with him?"

I cracked open one eye to see two blurry figures silhouetted against a glass window pane looking out over some kind of high-tech office facility. As my vision began to focus, I recognized Steve Rogers and a redheaded woman whispering urgently to one another. I sat up slowly and both of their heads snapped over in my direction.

"Wha's going on?" I asked sluggishly. "Where am I? Where's Bucky?"

The two exchanged worried looks before the woman made her way over to the couch upon which I had been deposited and squatted down to my level.

"You're in the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre. I'm Natasha Romanoff. How are you feeling?"

My stomach dropped when she said her name. She looked smaller than she had on tv during the S.H.I.E.L.D. trials, slim and agile and… deadly. The Black Widow moniker really did fit her.

"Where's Bucky?" I repeated, ignoring her question and finding my strength to get to my feet. She stood up with me and held out a hand to steady me as I swayed a moment.

"Sergeant Barnes is secure," she said reassuringly. Her tone confused me; it seemed more like she was trying to make me feel as though I was safely away from him, rather than let me know that he was safely nearby. I looked to Steve for help. I was sure that he was the only other person who loved Bucky as much as I did, and that he would understand what I was asking.

The Captain approached us. "He's being detained," he explained, looking pained. "They think he's responsible for the Vienna bombing, even though we know he wasn't." I glanced at Romanoff; her expression was hard to read, but I guessed she was skeptical of Steve's words.

"I need to see him," I said automatically. "I can… testify, or whatever. I was with him all along. It wasn't him. I don't know how they did it, but someone is framing him."

Steve nodded, but Natasha frowned. "Why were you with him?" She asked me dubiously.

I told them everything. Well, everything important. I told them about Andrej Kliment, about the boat, about my thesis. I told him that Bucky had not kidnapped me, that it was all my idea, that I trusted him, that I went willingly. I didn't tell them about Elvis, or karaoke, or Christmas. I didn't tell them that I was in love with him. But by the end of my tale, I was sure that they both knew it anyway.

"We have to tell Ross," Steve said, looking hard at Natasha.

"He'll never believe it. It's too insane. And Barnes isn't talking."

"Give him my thesis papers!" I was beginning to feel a little hysterical. "They're all in my bag, my notes are dated, it proves that he was with me!" I clutched Romanoff's wrist, making her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "Just let me see him, let me talk to him, I can prove that this is a set-up!"

Just then the door opened and we spun around to see a tall blonde striding in, her eyes fixed firmly on Steve.

"Sharon," he acknowledged her.

"The psychologist from the UN is here to interview Barnes," she told him quietly. He nodded and scrubbed his hand over his face in worry.

"Psychologist?" I asked the blonde–Sharon. She didn't respond, but glanced quickly over her shoulder before reaching down and pressing a few buttons on the desk next to her. A screen sprang to life above us with a live feed: Bucky, shackled in a bulletproof cell, brooding as a man slunk into the room to sit at a desk opposite him. A strangled cry erupted from my throat at the sight of him caged like an animal, his metal fist clenching and unclenching. To my surprise, Natasha placed a comforting hand on my arm.

We stood stock still in silence, watching and listening as the psychologist began his questioning. I could feel my entire body quivering with rage and nerves that worsened the longer I watched Bucky sit, defeated and deflated, in his cage. I hardly heard Steve and Sharon speaking in hushed tones behind me.

"…but that doesn't guarantee that anyone would get him, it guarantees that we would."

Sharon's words broke the spell and we all turned to look at her, a sense of foreboding creeping into the room and stifling the air around us. Slowly, one by one, we each looked up at the profile of the psychologist on the video monitor.

And then everything went dark.


	20. Chapter 20

_**Warnings: angst, choking, some fighting stuff**_

 **A/N: OMG you guys I'm sorry for my hiatus! Things have been so crazy and I've had some writer's block trying to figure out how to get through the rest of this. It feels good to get back to it! Thank you so much for the kind reviews!**

* * *

Before I could comprehend what had happened, Steve was already pushing me out of the room and down the hallway.

"You need to get out of here," he told me urgently.

"No, we need to find Bucky!" I implored him, trying in vain to shrug his hands off of me as we neared the door that led to the stairwell.

"I will. But you need to go. If… if something happens to you, if he hurts you while he's…. He'll never forgive himself. It will make everything worse. You need to get to safety. Get down to the ground floor and get outside. Find somewhere to hide. Go!" He yanked open the door and shoved me into the stairwell in spite of my protests, shutting it behind me and barring it so that I could not open it. Cursing, I bolted down the stairs, finding each door on the way down locked with some kind of emergency safety mechanism. At last I reached the bottom floor and shoved into the exit door, crying out and blinking rapidly at the bright sunlight that blinded me as I nearly fell onto the sidewalk outside the building.

Almost instantly I was shuffled into the crowd of people evacuating the building and I had no choice but to run aimlessly along with the throng. I whipped my head over my shoulder, trying to gauge the size of the building and figure out where the Joint Counter Terrorist offices might have been, but it was impossible to tell from this insane angle as I was pinballed down the sidewalk. Throwing my elbows out, I pushed through the crowd back towards the building, heading around the corner towards the main entrance and pushed my way against the current of people and into the lobby. The room was an open plan cafeteria with abandoned coffee cups and trays littering the small, round tables that lined either side of the glass-domed space. I paused inside the door, catching my breath for a moment and trying to orient the offices from my location, when I heard the sounds of fighting coming from the other side of the lobby.

I ducked behind a half wall and peered around it as Steve, Natasha, and Sharon stormed in followed by Bucky. Only, it wasn't Bucky. His blue eyes, usually so warm and full of light, were dead and cold, almost unseeing as he swung hard with the full weight of his metal fist. I watched in horror as the same man who had caressed me so gently, who had hummed while he washed china dishes, who had delicately turned the pages of paperbacks, pummelled his best friend with the force of a thousand men, aiming to kill. I was relieved to see that neither Sharon nor Natasha seemed to have guns on them, otherwise I was sure they would not have hesitated to use them. My entire body shook with fear as I watched Bucky knock them aside over and over as they continued to retaliate, him swinging tirelessly with that same dead look in his eyes. At length he slammed Natasha onto a cafe table, his immense fists tight around her throat.

"NO!" I cried, flinging myself out from behind the wall towards them. Bucky's head whipped towards me but he did not let go of Natasha.

"Bucky," I sobbed, "please, this isn't you! You're not what they put inside of you, Buck! Come back to me! Let go of her!"

His face did not change, but I thought I saw him cock his head slightly in confusion and he must have relinquished some grip on Natasha because she was able to kick out and knock him away from her, gasping for breath on her knees. Bucky's full attention was on me now, though, and he began to stalk slowly towards me with his fists balled.

"Bucky," I choked out. My instinct was to back away but I forced myself to stand in place, to face him. _He won't hurt me_ , I told myself over and over as he came towards me, but the hot tears streaming down my cheeks told a different story. "Bucky, it's me. It's Y/N. Don't you remember? Remember Bucharest? Remember us?" I swallowed thickly, looking into his eyes. But they were not Bucky's eyes. They were the eyes of the Winter Soldier.

He reached out and I shut my eyes as the cool metal closed around my throat. _To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die_. The lyrics sprung to my mind as I wept softly, picturing Bucky, my Bucky, in my mind. Disheveled and gaunt on the ship, fierce as he carried me on his back through the streets, frightened and sad from a waking nightmare, passionate and warm in the throws of lovemaking, happy and serene as we lay quietly in bed together. Opening my eyes I looked up at him as his grip tightened.

"I love you," I whispered.

He hesitated. It was only a moment, but I felt the instant his hands froze. For the briefest of seconds his eyes seemed to clear and he blinked quickly, looking me over, but then it was gone and the cold was back, and he was killing me.

"I love you, Bucky," I choked, and everything went black again.

* * *

I awoke. That, in and of itself, was astounding to me. The ground beneath me was hard and I winced as I tried to lift my head and felt pain in my neck. _How am I not dead?_

Slowly, I raised myself to a seated position against the wall and took in my surroundings. It was dark, but I could make out a room that appeared to be some kind of warehouse. There was machinery and discarded parts all around me. Across the room there was a lantern emitting a dim light and two figures were huddled around it speaking in hushed voices.

"She's awake," one of them said, and they came to squat beside me. I was relieved to see that one was Steve.

"Hey, there. You okay?" he asked me, his face grave with concern. I tried to nod but winced again in pain and looked inquisitively at the other man. "This is Sam Wilson," Steve informed me.

"Falcon, if you're nasty," Sam quipped with a grim smile.

"What happened?" I rasped, and Sam held out a tankard of water which I gulped down gratefully.

Steve filled me in. He had managed to pull Bucky off of me just in time, and the fighting had ensued throughout the building and up onto the roof until he had, at last, managed to take Bucky down safely with a hard knock to the head.

"Cognitive recalibration," Steve said with a crooked smile, and I felt like I was missing some kind of joke. "He's knocked out in the next room, secure and out of the Task Force's hands. But we're under the radar now." Sam had found me in the lobby and brought me here with him on Steve's instruction. "If anyone can get through to him in this state, it's you, Y/N."

We spent the next few hours taking turns resting, Sam and Steve pacing in the doorway and waiting to see if Bucky would wake up as himself or as the Winter Soldier. When I finally managed to get to my feet I found a dirty lavatory in which to wash my face. In the dingy mirror I saw that my neck was ringed with dark bruises: I could clearly make out a thumb print that had been made with Bucky's metal hand.

In the wee hours of the morning, I saw Steve's head snap up as a groan echoed in the room next door. We exchanged worried looks before filing in.

Bucky was seated on the filthy floor with his metal arm trapped between two large piles of cinder block, his face caked in sweat and blood. The sight made my empty stomach roil and I had to tamp down the panicked urge to run over and fling my arms around him. He looked up, taking us each in in turn, his eyes widening on me and zeroing in on my dark neck, a gutteral noise of pain escaping his throat at the sight.

"What did I do?" he croaked, looking back at Steve with watery eyes.

Steve filled him in but I didn't hear anything; all I could feel was relief. My Bucky was back, and I needed to hold him in my arms and feel the real him again. But Steve needed him more, so I had to wait my turn.

Bucky told Steve everything he could remember about the fake psychologist's questions and about the other Winter Soldiers that were still on ice in Siberia. As he spoke, his sad eyes kept flicking over to me, all pain and regret and anguish, and I kept swallowing the lump in my throat over and over again.

At last they formed a plan and I shrank back against the wall as Steve freed Bucky from the cinder blocks and enveloped him an awkward embrace. Finally he looked over at me and swallowed.

"Sam and I will just.. Go and rest up," he said, and backed out of the room with a skeptical Sam in tow.

Bucky turned to me at last and my heart shattered when I saw tears in his eyes.

"Doll," his voice broke as he ran his flesh hand roughly through his matted hair, "I'm so sorry. I… I can never forgive… I…"

I ran to him, finally allowing my tears to fall as I wrapped him in a tight embrace and pressed kisses to his cheeks and neck.

"Don't you apolog–"

"No," he said flatly, grabbing my shoulders and holding me away at arms' length. "I told you, I'm a fucking monster. I can't… you have to stay away from me. I don't know why Steve brought you here. It's time for you to go home."

I balked, bile and sadness and anger crawling up my bruised throat as I tried to wrangle out of his grasp. "No! You don't get to say that to me, not after everything we've been through! After everything we did!" He looked away, ashamed and unable to meet my eyes. "Listen to me!" I was practically screeching by now. "I'm not going anywhere! I love you, you idiot! Do you not know that by now?"

He winced and I saw a tear streak down his dirty cheek. "But I hurt you! I almost fucking killed you!"

"THAT WASN'T YOU!" I escaped his clutching hands and threw my arms around his neck, pulling him against my chest. "I know you, the real you, and we're going to figure this out together, and it's going to be okay, because I fucking love you, Bucky!"

He collapsed into me finally, having no more fight left in his broken body. "I love you, too," he croaked, "but I don't deserve you."

"Sergeant Barnes," I snapped, pulling away and forcing his chin to look into my eyes, "you need to pull it together _right now_. There are plenty of people to hate and blame right now, and you're not one of them. We get through this together, like we have been all along. I love you, and there's nothing you can do about it. So let's go get these fucking bad guys. Okay?"

The morning sun was beginning to light the room with a pale orange glow. Behind me, I heard footsteps and Steve clearing his throat.

"Sharon's almost here," he announced before retreating again, and I looked expectantly at Bucky. He was looking at me forlornly, the ghost of a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

"Okay, doll." He looked worried still, but I took his hands in mine and slammed my lips hungrily into his. He responded tentatively at first, but gradually his lips parted and he sighed into a sweet, sorrowful kiss.


	21. Chapter 21

"Can you move your seat up?"

Bucky was scowling at the back of Sam's head, fidgeting restlessly in the cramped back seat of the tiny blue jalopy. I couldn't help but smirk with a little amusement at Bucky's evident childish jealousy of the friendship between Sam and Steve. Placing a comforting hand on his thigh, I tried to ease the tension, saying, "I fail to see how this car says, 'inconspicuous'. Can't say I've ever seen this particular model in my grocery store parking lot." Sam snorted, but Bucky only crossed his arms with a huff and continued his brooding.

"Damn!" Sam exclaimed suddenly and we all looked up through the windshield to see Steve and Sharon sharing a quick but steamy kiss. When she pulled away to get back in her car, Steve turned toward us looking pretty pleased with himself, and we all chuckled and gave him a thumbs up.

The humor did not last long, though, and soon we were all frowning in silence as we drove through the city to reach the airport where a quinjet was waiting to take us to Siberia. Steve had called in a few other super-friends to help, whom we were meeting near the hangar. I sat wringing my hands as we drove, wondering what the hell my part in all of this was. What help was I going to be in a fight - especially a fight between powered people? Braun against braun: that was foreign territory to me. But what about brain?

I considered everything I knew about Bucky, about Siberia, and about the mysterious doctor who had gone to great lengths to find the words to set Bucky off as the Winter Soldier, and I tried to apply criminal psychology to the situation. The whole thing was… odd, to say the least. Unconventional, and risky. Did the doctor really put all of his faith in the fact that Bucky was strong enough–and broken enough–to kill _all_ of the Avengers? Was he only using him for the information about the other soldiers kept in Siberia? What is the motivation here?

Steve eased the car into a vacant parking spot next to a white van in the airport parking garage. Looking around cautiously for signs of the Task Force, we climbed out and the guys gathered up their gear from the trunk while the rest of the team–Clint Barton, Wanda Maximoff, and Scott Lang– got out of the white van and were introduced. Bucky and I stood off to the side while the others shook hands and bantered, clearly the odd ones out in this situation.

"We need to get moving," he murmured to me irritably. His forehead was creased with worry and stress, and I gently brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes and leaned into him for comfort. Mine or his, I wasn't sure.

"Listen," he said, gently taking hold of my shoulders and locking his eyes with mine, "I don't want you to come with us, but Steve is concerned about what the Task Force will do to you if they think you're associated with me." He winced as he said it, as if it pained him to know that I was in danger because of him any way you sliced it. "When we get to Siberia, you _stay on the jet_. And if anything happens, I want you to get the fuck out of there. If any of them escape and try to come after you, you leave. You leave me there. Do you understand?"

I opened my mouth to protest, but desperation and guilt in his eyes took the fight out of me.

"Okay," I whispered, knowing it was a lie, but telling it to him anyway. How could I ever leave him behind now?

He wrapped his arms around me, crushing me into his chest, blocking out the others, the airport, the rest of the world. "Whatever happens," he said into my ear, "know that you saved my life. And that I love you, so much."

Before I could respond, Steve called, "Suit up, it's time to go!" and we were forced to get moving. Steve, tipped off by Clint and Wanda that Tony Stark intended to head us off, had devised a plan to split up. Bucky was paired off with Sam, and he wrapped a protective arm around me, indicating that he would not be allowing me out of his sight. The three of us set off, sneaking around the wide arc of the parking garage towards the other side of the tarmac where the quinjet was waiting.

My heart was racing in my chest as I heard the first sounds of fighting ensuing from the tarmac several stories below, the loudest being the unmistakable sound of Iron Man powering up his weaponized arms. Fear gripped me as Sam and Bucky broke into a run and I put my head down, trying to keep up. We had made it nearly halfway around the circle when I heard Bucky cry out incredulously,

"What the hell is that?"

A yelp escaped my throat as a compact man in a red and blue suit broke in through the glass ceiling and knocked Sam aside with a powerful kick. Bucky commanded me to keep running as he swung his whirring metal fist around to fight the new foe, who I now saw had a logo of a spider on his suit and seemed to be shooting… web from his hands. _What the actual fuck?_

Skidding to a stop, I looked around frantically trying to think of some way to help as Sam and Bucky took turns trying to take down the spider guy. I gasped when I looked down into the tarmac and saw, to my horror, all of the Avengers fighting one another. _This is it_ , I realized, horror dawning on me, _This is what the doctor wanted all along. Why kill the Avengers when they can just kill each other?_

My breath was knocked out of my lungs as a body suddenly slammed into me and I was lifted off my feet: Bucky had straight up grabbed me and thrown me over his shoulder, panting with exertion from the fight as he ran as fast as he could toward the hangar. I looked around wildly, seeing the blur of the red suit swinging back and forth above me as the spider guy caught up to us.

"Bucky!" I cried out as the figure drew near and held an arm out to shoot; with a grunt, Bucky dodge-rolled just in time for me to see the viscous webbing fly past my face. In a fluid movement Bucky dumped me on the ground behind a pole and ripped the hood off of a car parked nearby, whirling around and flinging it at the spider with all of his strength. I pulled myself shakily but quickly to my feet, reaching for his outstretched hand and locking our panicked eyes for a brief moment before we heard a teasing, teenager-like voice:

"Hey, buddy, I think you lost this!"

The pole exploded as the car hood collided with it over our heads and Bucky yanked me again into a run. I couldn't catch my breath and was losing my footing, unable to keep up with his super-soldier speed, and the next thing I knew, I hit the ground, hard. Rolling a few paces I landed on my back but when I tried to get up, me entire body was shackled to the concrete ground in a cocoon of webbing. Swearing to myself, I had no choice but to lay there listening to the fight ensuing on the floor below me, all the while panicking at my revelation about the fake doctor's plan. _I need to tell Steve, and Stark too! We have to call this off, or he's going to win!_

At length, I heard footsteps and then Bucky crouched over me, panting and wiping a trickle of blood off of his forehead.

"Get me out of this," I said tersely, "quick, we need to move!"

But Bucky didn't move. I looked at me for a long moment, pain and sadness and regret in his eyes, before reaching out his flesh hand and gently smoothing the sweaty hair off of my forehead.

"What are you doing?!" Panic hitched my voice up an octave and I struggled with my bonds, trying to break free so that I could touch him, run with him off into the unknown. But I couldn't break free, and Bucky did not help me.

"I'm sorry, Y/N. But you'll be safer here than in Siberia. Tell them I kidnapped you and held you hostage. Tell them whatever they want to hear so that they know you're innocent in all of this. I don't care what any of them think I am. All that matters is that you truly knew me, the real me. Not the Winter Soldier. As long as I know that, I'm happy to go and die where I should've died long ago. I'm so sorry for everything. I love you."

He stood up and turned away, heading down the ramp towards the tarmac, ignoring my screams of agony and my helpless tears, to fight his way to his death.


	22. Chapter 22 - The End

" _Next at 5:00, highlights from the televised panel at Y/F/N Y/L/N's book signing this afternoon where the author maintained her staunch defence on behalf of The Winter Soldier, James Buchanan Barnes. The author, who rose to infamy with the publication of her controversial thesis detailing shocking details of the inner workings of HYDRA, batted dozens of questions from readers regarding Barnes's culpability to his crimes while he was brainwashed by the secret organization. Book stores say they can hardly keep their shelves stocked with the new exposee, which not only chronicles Barnes's muddied past under HYDRA's control and presents his innocence, but also hints at the author's mysterious four-month disappearance with The Winter Soldier that has kept the world abuzz with interest for the past year. Will we finally find out what led to love with the metal man? Stay tuned for more…"_

* * *

One year.

That's all it had been, one year. And yet, it seemed like a lifetime, or forever. It had been a year since Natasha found me sobbing helplessly on the ground in the parking garage and cut me out of my webbed bonds, only to wordlessly cuff my wrists behind my back. A year since I sat stone-faced and empty as Deputy Commander Ross questioned me relentlessly about Bucky and Steve's whereabouts to no avail, before locking me up in an isolated cell for two days. I didn't care. I couldn't feel anything anyway.

Somehow, I got this great lawyer. She came on the third day, all smart and crisp and business-like, escorting me from the building and explaining to me that she would be representing me in my trial pro-bono. I don't know how she did it, but she got me off the hook completely. Later, I suspiciously performed a background search on her, wondering how and why she had oh-so charitably decided to take up my cause. The only connection I could make was that she had previously worked on behalf of Stark Industries. I didn't know what to make of that.

Along with my freedom I had won the legal rights to have my thesis notes returned to my custody from the Task Force. I squirreled away in my apartment, writing and nursing my broken heart, vacillating between numbness, anger, betrayal, worry, and sadness. After a few days, however, the news broke that the fake doctor, Helmut Zemo, was in the Task Force's custody awaiting trial, and that the only bodies found during the raid of the Siberian HYDRA base were those of five unknown super-soldiers, dead in their cryogenic tanks. Steve Rogers and James Barnes, it turned out, had disappeared.

The news revived me, restored me, renewed my determination to burn HYDRA forever and with it, champion Bucky's innocence. When I published my thesis, I sent it on to every major news outlet and social media I could think of. I granted tons of radio and tv interviews about it. It turned out that my disappearance and discovery had garnered a lot of interest, and I utilized my presence in the public consciousness to tell the world about Bucky– _my_ Bucky.

I didn't tell them everything, of course. The truly intimate details would only ever live between the crumbling walls of number 13, but I testified to his anguish, regret, grief, pain, memory loss, and rehabilitation. There was, of course, an open investigation on him and I was questioned several times, but not even I could tell them where he was now. When interest in my cause began to wane, I adapted my thesis into a book, in which I hinted at the true nature of our relationship. This twist of forbidden love between innocent, ambitious student and tortured assassin caught fire in the gossip columns right away and I was back in the limelight, my book on the fast track to the Best Seller lists for the year.

Sighing, I closed out of the news video on my phone and placed the screen face-down on the bar, turning my attention back to the beer in front of me and taking a long pull from the bottle. The onyx ring, still on my left hand, refracted the dim yellow light from the bar lamp as I tipped the drink to my lips, making my heart pang with longing as it caught my eye. My phone pinged with a message but I ignored it; probably my publisher congratulating me for another successful signing event where I had sold out of every copy of my book. I should have been glad, I guess, because the more people who read the book, the more people would be on Bucky's side when he finally came back. But the problem was, I didn't know if he would ever come back.

As I finished my beer, someone slid onto the stool next to me, and I frowned in irritation, wanting to be left alone after my long and trying day.

"Wanna get out of here? I've got something to show you I think you'll be interested in."

I turned toward the man, an acidic rebuff on my lips to tell him to fuck off, but my heart leapt into my throat and I was unable to speak. Clint Barton sat hunched over, a hood obscuring most of his face as he leaned in towards me, smirking boyishly at the haughty expression I had been about to smite him with.

"Clint," I choked out, before he shushed me and took hold of my arm to bring me outside. Hastily I threw some cash on the counter for my drinks before toppling off the stool with him and out the door. He kept his tight grip on my elbow as we wove down the sidewalk; it was after dinner on a Friday, and many people were out to greet the waxing moon in the darkening sky for a night on the town, oblivious to the fact that the entire world had turned upside down. Abruptly Clint turned into an empty alleyway, releasing my arm and tilting his head for me to continue following.

"Come on, this way."

"What is this way? What are you doing here, Clint? Where are the others?"

Ahead of me I saw him shrug. "I'm guessing you heard some shit went down in Siberia."

"That was a year ago!" I hissed at him, balling my fists as he chuckled at me over his shoulder.

"Yeah, well, it's been difficult to get word to you. A bunch of us have been locked up on The Raft."

"The Raft?!" I had heard about the extreme prison out in the middle of the ocean used only for the most dangerous criminals. "Was Bucky–"

"Steve managed to spring us just a few weeks ago," Clint continued over my outburst. "We've been laying low trying to figure out what to do about the Task Force. Frankly, I'm just trying to get off the grid with my family. But," he rounded a corner and we found ourselves in a different dark alley, this one significantly wider, "Steve wanted me to find you first. T'Challa needs your help."

"T'Challa?" I couldn't keep up. What did the Wakandan king have to do with any of this? Up ahead I could make out the silhouette of a vehicle and several figures standing motionless around it in the dark. Nervously, I asked Clint, "What the hell is going on?"

Finally he stopped and turned to me with a sigh. "You're just going to have to trust me. There is… sensitive information. It's best if you don't know, in case you're apprehended on the way there." He placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze, tilting his head towards the car. "Go with them, quickly. It'll be fine. And say hi to everybody for me."

Something about his words and the smile at the corner of his mouth created a bubble of hope in my chest that gave me the strength to pick my feet up and approach the car. As I neared, the figures came into focus: all three were tall, beautiful, bald women, lean but muscular with flawless dark skin, dressed in colorful robes and jewelry. The lady in the center nodded to me as I stepped toward them.

"Y/F/N Y/L/N," she addressed me in a rich accent, "our king, T'Challa, requests your services in Wakanda."

I nodded in speechless acquiescence, unsure what else to say, and she stepped aside for me to climb into the car.

* * *

I peered wide-eyed out the window of the small ship, watching in awe as Wakanda materialized out of the African landscape before my eyes as we lowered onto a platform in front of the palace. Rolling the stiffness out of my ankles, I wished for the umpeenth time today that I had not worn high heels to my book signing. I stood up and tried to smooth the wrinkles out of my pencil skirt and blouse, butterflies in my stomach at the idea that I was about to meet a king. In an official capacity, that is. I had to remind myself that a year ago he had been trying to kill the love of my life. _Yes, because that makes this less complicated and nerve-wracking_ , I thought to myself irritably, trying to dismiss the thought.

But the king greeted me with warmth and graciousness, thanking me for coming and asking if I might like to rest and change into something more comfortable before we "began our work." I had no clue what our work was, but I took up his offer to freshen up and was led to a palace guest room and given a plain but luxurious dress distinctly Wakandan in style and a pair of leather sandals to match. In the adjoining bathroom there was a small basket of toiletries which I utilized to refresh my face, hair, and teeth before donning my new wardrobe and heading back out to the main lobby to reconvene with T'Challa.

He led me through the palace, pointing out some historical artifacts and interesting archaeological details that at any other time would have had me riveted, but my heart was pounding in my ears and I could barely pay attention to his words as I wondered what in the hell I had gotten into this time. At length he opened the door into a domed room filled with what appeared to be lab equipment, and a smiling young woman came flouncing towards us.

"My sister, Shuri," T'Challa introduced us, and I discreetly wiped my sweaty palm on my dress before shaking her hand. "It is actually she who has need of you."

"Yes, I'm afraid I've hit a wall with my White Wolf project," Shuri grinned at me and I got the feeling that there was a joke I was out of the loop on as she exchanged a sly glance with her brother.

"I… I'm not sure what I can do for you, but I'm happy to help in any way I can," I said a little shakily, smiling meekly back. Shuri's energy was warm and inviting and it was hard not to smile when I looked at her, really.

Twenty minutes later Shuri and I had breezed out the front door of the palace and started down the path leading into the rest of the village.

"My project," she was telling me animatedly, "is not making any more progress. I've put most of the puzzle back together but it's like I am missing a very important piece that will make the picture make sense. There is only so much work that technology can do. I think you can provide the final piece."

"So… you need some psychological input?" I guessed, wondering why she was being so cryptic. How could I assist her if I didn't know what the project was?

She cocked her head, an amused look on her face. "I suppose, in a way. You will understand when you see it. Nearly there."

We had forked off of the main path onto a smaller one and crested a hill. When we reached the top, Shuri stopped and I copied her, looking around. It was a quiet area, lots of open farmland dotted with a few small huts with smoke billowing from little chimneys on the roofs. Shuri pointed to the nearest one, and I inspected it curiously. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be seeing.

"There," she said, making me turn to look at her; she was grinning again and she nodded back over my shoulder at the house. "The White Wolf."

I turned back, and my heart stopped.

His frame filled the tiny doorway of the hut. His hair was longer than when I had last seen him, tied half up in a small knot on the back of head, and his stubble too had grown out. He was shirtless, his perfectly sculpted torso and abs glistening with sweat in the thick heat. He had a cloth wrapped around his left side tied over his shoulder and I realized that his metal arm was gone. I could see that he was still wearing the leather bracelet I had given him on his right wrist, the one with the carved white wolf. I didn't even realize that I had been walking, stumbling toward him, until a sob choked from my throat and caused his head to snap towards me. I was close enough now that I could see his ice blue eyes widen and then soften as he took me in. With a quiet cry he ran a few steps towards me and closed the gap between us and I threw my arms around his shoulders. Bucky. _My_ Bucky. He was here, he was alive, he was alright.

"Doll… Is this a dream?" he asked into my hair incredulously as I squeezed him against me, wanting to never let go. "Did Shuri fuck with my head so much I'm seeing stuff?"

"No," I pulled back to look at his beautiful face, pressing my palms against his cheeks and relishing the feeling of him in my hands, "it's really me, I'm really here. And God, I have really missed you, you idiot."

"Y/N!" Bucky crashed his lips to mine and I felt my knees going weak as I leaned into him, lost in the embrace I had been craving for so long. He pulled away for breath, saying, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I had to leave you there, I'm so sorry I disappeared, if I'd have known–"

"Shh," I pressed a finger to his lips. I didn't want to think about what had happened a year ago. There would be plenty of time for talking, for apologizes, for making up lost time. We were together now, and that was all that mattered. "Don't you apologize to me."

Bucky smiled and kissed me again, so sweetly and softly that tears welled up in my eyes. I felt him run his thumb over the onyx ring and him sigh with relief and contentment: I had waited for him.

"I love you, doll."

The sun shone brilliant and orange over the serene landscape, it's bright blaze echoing the warmth in my heart. It seems that Elvis was right, after all. Some things are meant to be.

"And I love you, Bucky Barnes."

* * *

 **A/N: Omg it's finally done! Haha. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who followed and has been writing such nice reviews, I'm honestly shook that anyone is reading something that I wrote much less enjoying it so thank you so much :3 I Hope this ending feels okay/complete! It felt like a good place to stop because like... what even is happening in the Infinity War reality? I am thinking about writing a bonus smutty epilogue or something so that might be a thing... if you're on tumblr you should follow me to find out! spookyjuicefiction and now that this is finished I'm free to write some other lil things I've been thinking about. So yeah, anyways, thanks again and hail yourselves!**


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